I've been looking around for things to reassure myself that Christmas in Vienna is not going to be as sad as I'm afraid it might be. The latest of these is the fact that stores and supermarkets have (so far) not given themselves over to playing the same annoying Christmas songs over and over from the beginning of November. Instead, they've stuck to the usual bizarre array of old-to-newish, mostly American tunes that I haven't heard in ages. Today's installment was "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", which was then - not unpleasantly, I might add - stuck in my head all day.
Reassuring thing #2 is that there is a guy right outside my residence selling teeny tiny Christmas trees, one of which I will soon purchase and install in my room, undoubtedly in slightly crooked fashion. Then I can decorate it cheap-student style, with popcorn strings and construction paper chains! Amanda, if you're reading this, we're going to make popcorn strings and construction paper chains while you're here. I'm afraid you have very little choice in the matter.
People I Know, or Wish I Knew
Monday, December 8, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Would you mind if I told you how they do it in Austria?
Alternate title: Reading facebook message boards can be hazardous to your health
Who knows how Canada's constitution works? It's not always me, but I can assure you that it is definitely not 95% of the pissy 18-year-olds who've chosen to share their indignance with the world via the message board of "I'm against the Liberal coup d'état".
Firstly...ok. I know that anyone who's reading my blog already gets this, but OH GOD STOP CALLING IT A "COUP". This is a coup. This is a coup. This is a coup, too. What is happening in Canada is a peaceful, legal, perfectly constitutional response to a Cabinet that has lost the confidence of the House. Furthermore, it's already happened in Canada, both officially and unofficially. Everybody take a breath.
While you're breathing, try to think for a moment about your response to the term "coalition government". I saw an awful lot of "look at Italy and Israel!!!! Coalitions are doomed to failure!!!!!1!!" And I suppose you have a point, Mr. "Jack Layton is a Communist" of St. Albert Catholic High School, especially when you consider how much more Canada has in common with Israel than with Sweden, Ireland, Germany, or any other of the numerous stable, peaceful democracies listed here. I hear Switzerland is a real hell-hole these days - good thing those train tickets to Zurich are refundable.
I'm going to talk about Austria for a minute, since its the only country that I've had the good fortune to live in under a coalition government, not to mention during an election of same. I'll be the first to admit that Austrian politics fall on the "kind of messed" side of the (democratic) political spectrum. Full disclosure: in the past two months, the following things have happened.
I don't mean to paint Austria as an idyllic, post-partisan dreamworld - it's not, and there are issues. The point is that there has come to Europe a sense that government consists of everyone who has been elected to it. That perhaps MPs should think of governing before they think of securing their legacies. That perhaps agendas should be discussed and revised, rather than imposed. That perhaps everyone in Canada should relax and think about things before screaming about socialists, separatists, and not-a-leaders (oh my!).
And while I'm thinking about it, someone should tell Stephen Harper that, while I'm holding in my Nelson laugh in the spirit of cooperation, a bully is not the same thing as a leader. Leaders talk to people, leaders inspire, leaders take counsel, and above all, leaders get shit done. Something about living in glass PM residences and not throwing parliamentary maces...? Man, I can't wait to see what happens.
Oh yeah, and Austria also has proportional representation. Just in case you were wondering.
Who knows how Canada's constitution works? It's not always me, but I can assure you that it is definitely not 95% of the pissy 18-year-olds who've chosen to share their indignance with the world via the message board of "I'm against the Liberal coup d'état".
Firstly...ok. I know that anyone who's reading my blog already gets this, but OH GOD STOP CALLING IT A "COUP". This is a coup. This is a coup. This is a coup, too. What is happening in Canada is a peaceful, legal, perfectly constitutional response to a Cabinet that has lost the confidence of the House. Furthermore, it's already happened in Canada, both officially and unofficially. Everybody take a breath.
While you're breathing, try to think for a moment about your response to the term "coalition government". I saw an awful lot of "look at Italy and Israel!!!! Coalitions are doomed to failure!!!!!1!!" And I suppose you have a point, Mr. "Jack Layton is a Communist" of St. Albert Catholic High School, especially when you consider how much more Canada has in common with Israel than with Sweden, Ireland, Germany, or any other of the numerous stable, peaceful democracies listed here. I hear Switzerland is a real hell-hole these days - good thing those train tickets to Zurich are refundable.
I'm going to talk about Austria for a minute, since its the only country that I've had the good fortune to live in under a coalition government, not to mention during an election of same. I'll be the first to admit that Austrian politics fall on the "kind of messed" side of the (democratic) political spectrum. Full disclosure: in the past two months, the following things have happened.
- An election occurred, after the previous coalition government split following disagreement over Austria's level of involvement in and committment to the EU
- 16-to-18-year-olds, voting in their first election in Austrian history, overwhelmingly tilted to the far-right, leading to a minority parliament with representation from the center-left (29%), center-right (26%), far right (18%), batshit-crazy right (11%), and green (10%) parties
- Immediately following the elections, two of the major parties (center-right and green) changed leaders, seemingly overnight
- The overly-tanned and immensely-popular-in-certain-circles leader of the batshit-crazies died in a car accident, leaving his 28-year-old protegé/best friend/rumoured lover to take the helm
- After considerable soul-searching, the leader of the center-right party rejects appeals from the far right to form government, and instead reaches out to the leader of the center-left
- They take their sweet-ass time coming to a consensus on policy and cabinet positions, leaving plenty of time for the newly-minted Saviour of the Batshit-Crazies to resign his party's house leadership, take a week to think about it, and then quit politics altogether to make a movie about his deceased mentor/maybe-boyfriend and weep publicly
- The leader of the center-right gets cold feet, and publicly submits "10 Important Questions" to his would-be coalition partner. He NEEDS ANSWERS! One of the questions may have been, "do you like me or like like me?"
- The center-left guy answers the questions the next day in a national newspaper, and the government is formed in the next week. The leader of the center-left (Werner Faymann) is the new Chancellor, Joseph Proll (center-right kingmaker) is Vice-Chancellor, and Cabinet positions were split evenly between the parties.
I don't mean to paint Austria as an idyllic, post-partisan dreamworld - it's not, and there are issues. The point is that there has come to Europe a sense that government consists of everyone who has been elected to it. That perhaps MPs should think of governing before they think of securing their legacies. That perhaps agendas should be discussed and revised, rather than imposed. That perhaps everyone in Canada should relax and think about things before screaming about socialists, separatists, and not-a-leaders (oh my!).
And while I'm thinking about it, someone should tell Stephen Harper that, while I'm holding in my Nelson laugh in the spirit of cooperation, a bully is not the same thing as a leader. Leaders talk to people, leaders inspire, leaders take counsel, and above all, leaders get shit done. Something about living in glass PM residences and not throwing parliamentary maces...? Man, I can't wait to see what happens.
Oh yeah, and Austria also has proportional representation. Just in case you were wondering.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Keep on fighting those stereotypes
From Roy MacGregor's article "The Audacity of Obama", published in the Globe and Mail:
No wonder, then, that Peter Newman once suggested that "The quintessential Canadian hero may have been Mackenzie King, who ruled this country longer than any other man, enjoyed the sex life of a gnat, never took a political chance and was so fastidious that, on a 1949 visit to his good friend John D. Rockefeller, he brought along six spare shoelaces."
No wonder, then, that Peter Newman once suggested that "The quintessential Canadian hero may have been Mackenzie King, who ruled this country longer than any other man, enjoyed the sex life of a gnat, never took a political chance and was so fastidious that, on a 1949 visit to his good friend John D. Rockefeller, he brought along six spare shoelaces."
Jezt kann ich ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen
I've been trying to learn German. I think I can now amend this to "I've been learning some German", because yesterday at work I understood fully 90% of a politely heated conversation about booking holiday vacation time via the company intranet ("No! If you don't come in on the BLUE days, it's an automatic vacation - otherwise the time is just subtracted from your total." "I think you are wrong." "You are the one who is wrong."...etc. Blows were narrowly avoided.)
The month of intensive language courses I took - four days a weeks, three hours a day, after work - was exhausting but undoubtedly useful. That was in September, and since then the world around me has been slowly turning into something I understand again. I've gone from doing mental happy dances at any intelligible overheard conversation (my first triumph: "Maximillian! How many times do I have to tell you?") to being annoyed when I can't understand. I still sound like an idiot three-year-old when I try to speak in German myself, but with more courses coming up in January, I hope to soon progress to the level of a five-year-old who's a just a little slow.
A fun upside of trying to learn German at work is the hilarious Austrian idioms, slang, and bizarre contractions my colleagues use. Of late, my favourite is the Upper Austrian phrase, "Auf, und der Kuh nach!" You say it when you want someone to get up and leave with you, and Juergen translated it as "Get up and follow the cow", but I prefer the word-for-word translation of "Up, and after the cow!". It calls to mind frantic Austrian farmers charging pell-mell through hilly pastures, shouting at neighbouring farmers to help them or, God forbid, there'll be no cheeses this Christmas!
I've also had my first sweet taste of being able to talk right in front of someone who has no clue what you're saying. This is snobby and mean, and I haven't done it very much at all, but one of my friends here is a fellow Canadian intern who's dating a Turkish-Austrian girl, and it is endlessly entertaining to discuss Turkish football with his girlfriend while he thinks we're talking about him.
Lastly and most obviously, there are some things that just sound hilarious in German. Of course, it's full of crazy-ass compound nouns. Why call it a fridge when you can call it a "cold cupboard"? Doesn't a shootout make more sense as an "eleven meter kicking"? One of the undisputed kings of these is the Donaudampfshiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenskajuetenschluesseloch, or the keyhole of the door to the cabin of the captain of a steamship company operating on the Danube. I'm still trying to find a way to work it into a sentence. A shorter but no more practical example is the sign displayed in the window of a nearby supermarket, proclaiming "Monday is Banana Day!". It would be funny anyway, but the fact that "Bananentag" is one word makes it gold.
In conclusion, languages are fun, and German is extra fun because you can essentially invent words whenever you want. Eat your heart out, Shakespeare.
The month of intensive language courses I took - four days a weeks, three hours a day, after work - was exhausting but undoubtedly useful. That was in September, and since then the world around me has been slowly turning into something I understand again. I've gone from doing mental happy dances at any intelligible overheard conversation (my first triumph: "Maximillian! How many times do I have to tell you?") to being annoyed when I can't understand. I still sound like an idiot three-year-old when I try to speak in German myself, but with more courses coming up in January, I hope to soon progress to the level of a five-year-old who's a just a little slow.
A fun upside of trying to learn German at work is the hilarious Austrian idioms, slang, and bizarre contractions my colleagues use. Of late, my favourite is the Upper Austrian phrase, "Auf, und der Kuh nach!" You say it when you want someone to get up and leave with you, and Juergen translated it as "Get up and follow the cow", but I prefer the word-for-word translation of "Up, and after the cow!". It calls to mind frantic Austrian farmers charging pell-mell through hilly pastures, shouting at neighbouring farmers to help them or, God forbid, there'll be no cheeses this Christmas!
I've also had my first sweet taste of being able to talk right in front of someone who has no clue what you're saying. This is snobby and mean, and I haven't done it very much at all, but one of my friends here is a fellow Canadian intern who's dating a Turkish-Austrian girl, and it is endlessly entertaining to discuss Turkish football with his girlfriend while he thinks we're talking about him.
Lastly and most obviously, there are some things that just sound hilarious in German. Of course, it's full of crazy-ass compound nouns. Why call it a fridge when you can call it a "cold cupboard"? Doesn't a shootout make more sense as an "eleven meter kicking"? One of the undisputed kings of these is the Donaudampfshiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenskajuetenschluesseloch, or the keyhole of the door to the cabin of the captain of a steamship company operating on the Danube. I'm still trying to find a way to work it into a sentence. A shorter but no more practical example is the sign displayed in the window of a nearby supermarket, proclaiming "Monday is Banana Day!". It would be funny anyway, but the fact that "Bananentag" is one word makes it gold.
In conclusion, languages are fun, and German is extra fun because you can essentially invent words whenever you want. Eat your heart out, Shakespeare.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Two things that only two select groups of people will appreciate
I met an Austrian guy the other night who not only lived in Victoria long enough to do a Master's thesis at UVic, but also visited Toronto long enough to meet with a...mutual acquaintance at U of T.
For the Victorians - he lived in Cook St. Village! And when I was describing the location of my parents' house to him, he said, "oh, Craigflower! Like the bus route?"
For the Engscis - we had the following conversation about his day at U of T:
Austrian guy: I was only there for an afternoon, but I'd previously arranged to meet with a professor there who's a bit of a bigshot in my field
Kari: Oh? What do you study?
Austrian guy: Computer Science. The professor seemed really smart, and he sounded excited to meet me in his emails, but when I got there it seemed that he'd completely forgotten about me and scheduled something else instead. It was interesting to meet him though. He's really young for a prof - I think he was 28 or so when I was there.
Kari: Any chance his name was Parham Aarabi?
Austrian guy: ...yeah. I thought you said you studied Aerospace?
Kari: Um, I did, but during the Foundation Years...I mean, I was in this program called...yeah, it's kind of complicated.
Austrian guy: Ok. Say, that guy's a little arrogant, isn't he?
Kari: Just a bit. Did he tell you about how he's building the car from Knight Rider?
For the Victorians - he lived in Cook St. Village! And when I was describing the location of my parents' house to him, he said, "oh, Craigflower! Like the bus route?"
For the Engscis - we had the following conversation about his day at U of T:
Austrian guy: I was only there for an afternoon, but I'd previously arranged to meet with a professor there who's a bit of a bigshot in my field
Kari: Oh? What do you study?
Austrian guy: Computer Science. The professor seemed really smart, and he sounded excited to meet me in his emails, but when I got there it seemed that he'd completely forgotten about me and scheduled something else instead. It was interesting to meet him though. He's really young for a prof - I think he was 28 or so when I was there.
Kari: Any chance his name was Parham Aarabi?
Austrian guy: ...yeah. I thought you said you studied Aerospace?
Kari: Um, I did, but during the Foundation Years...I mean, I was in this program called...yeah, it's kind of complicated.
Austrian guy: Ok. Say, that guy's a little arrogant, isn't he?
Kari: Just a bit. Did he tell you about how he's building the car from Knight Rider?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Four years ago
Four years ago, I was sitting on Deniz's bed in UC, burning myself on overheated transistors, writing a design proposal that was neither realistic nor accurate, and cursing as we watched a sea of red expand across the continental United States on CNN.com.
Tonight, it is 4:13am, and I have just returned home from a bar where a hundred ecstatic, travelling Democrats remain, drinking cider and wine spritzers because the beer has run out, and cheering on their guy with voices that are already hoarse.
CNN.com currently projects 207 electoral votes for Obama, not including California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, or Florida. There is a strong Democratic Senate majority. Elizabeth Dole lost. I am going to bed. 2008 wins.
Tonight, it is 4:13am, and I have just returned home from a bar where a hundred ecstatic, travelling Democrats remain, drinking cider and wine spritzers because the beer has run out, and cheering on their guy with voices that are already hoarse.
CNN.com currently projects 207 electoral votes for Obama, not including California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, or Florida. There is a strong Democratic Senate majority. Elizabeth Dole lost. I am going to bed. 2008 wins.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Sometimes I love my job
For the purposes of your own amusement, consider that my cube-mate Bob speaks with a Cockney brogue, and that all the other lines were delivered in a mix of German and German-accented English.
FACC, Wednesday, 3:30pm
Marian, a lead design engineer prone to wearing colourful t-shirts that are just slightly too tight, stands near the window with a pair of binoculars. All others are seated at their desks.
Marian: Hey, I think that's my girlfriend out there...
Andreas: On the runway?
Marian: Yeah, I think...yes, it's definitely her.
Andreas: Where? Loading that plane over there?
All rise and commence peering out the window
Marian: At first I wasn't sure, but it's definitely her. She works for Lufthansa. Raises binoculars again.
Bob: (quietly) Funny, I didn't see anyone with a white cane.
Kari: snickers
Andreas, Marian, all Austrians within earshot: What?
Kari: (realizing no one else understood the joke) guffaws
Bob: Oh...because a blind person would carry a white cane, and I figured she'd have to be blind to...nevermind.
Andreas: (catching on) Ha! She cannot see! Commences hilariously inappropriate imitation of a (seemingly hunchbacked) blind person walking with a cane
Marian: (looking indignant) Of course she can see. She's a flight attendant.
All but Marian: raucous laughter
20 minutes later...
Ernst, Lead Stress Engineer (and my boss), approaches
Ernst: Bob, what was going on before? I heard you all laughing.
Bob: Oh, nothing really. Marian saw his girlfriend working out on the runway.
Ernst: ...Marian's girlfriend is a dental hygenist.
Kari, Bob: raucous laughter
Ernst: What?
FACC, Wednesday, 3:30pm
Marian, a lead design engineer prone to wearing colourful t-shirts that are just slightly too tight, stands near the window with a pair of binoculars. All others are seated at their desks.
Marian: Hey, I think that's my girlfriend out there...
Andreas: On the runway?
Marian: Yeah, I think...yes, it's definitely her.
Andreas: Where? Loading that plane over there?
All rise and commence peering out the window
Marian: At first I wasn't sure, but it's definitely her. She works for Lufthansa. Raises binoculars again.
Bob: (quietly) Funny, I didn't see anyone with a white cane.
Kari: snickers
Andreas, Marian, all Austrians within earshot: What?
Kari: (realizing no one else understood the joke) guffaws
Bob: Oh...because a blind person would carry a white cane, and I figured she'd have to be blind to...nevermind.
Andreas: (catching on) Ha! She cannot see! Commences hilariously inappropriate imitation of a (seemingly hunchbacked) blind person walking with a cane
Marian: (looking indignant) Of course she can see. She's a flight attendant.
All but Marian: raucous laughter
20 minutes later...
Ernst, Lead Stress Engineer (and my boss), approaches
Ernst: Bob, what was going on before? I heard you all laughing.
Bob: Oh, nothing really. Marian saw his girlfriend working out on the runway.
Ernst: ...Marian's girlfriend is a dental hygenist.
Kari, Bob: raucous laughter
Ernst: What?
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