another eye-opening video.. the cruelty of humans

WATCH IT!

Hey guys! My new post is about a video that I have recently seen on the internet. It really made me think so I want to share it with all of you. It’s a video about the cruelty of humans. It shows how thoughtless human beings can be and how irresponsible some of us are acting on this planet. I have to say, the video generalizes a lot but we all know that there ARE people who kill animals in order to get new boots, a fur coat or a handbag. Many humans just don’t take care of other beings except themselves. For me, it’s one of the worst things on earth to witness an animal being hurt or killed. But it’s not only the animal cruelty; it’s also how our nature is treated. We probably can’t imagine how many trees and meadow had to give way for all our big cities. In my opinion that wouldn’t be so worse (as we have to live somewhere too) but all these cities produce air pollution which may destroy the rest of the plants and animals as well. It’s not that I am a tree-hugger and against any human inventions, but I’d like to entrust all of us to take more care of our planet and the animals living on it. It's the little things as well that can help to save our planet :)

Click on the link above and watch the video :) It’s worth it!

"the future belongs to those who know where they belong..."

Hey guys :)

My topic this time is a movie/book recommendation. I have to share this with you guys because I haven’t seen such a good movie in a while! I am sure some of you have already seen this movie as it is new in theaters and some probably have already read the three books (this is what I am doing next!). I have seen the trailer for the movie about a 100 times in the gym (but without sound) and from the first moment on I knew I have to watch this movie.
It is called DIVERGENT. It is actually very similar to the Hunger Games (which I love as well by the way) because of its similar themes and target audience. The first book was published in 2011 by the American novelist Veronica Roth.
It is about Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior who explores her identity within a society that defines its citizens by their social and personality-related affiliation with five different factions. These are Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), Abnegation (the selfless), and Candor (the honest). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote for the rest of their lives. They don’t have to choose their original faction. First they have to take a placement test that tells them which faction is right for them according to their personality. According to this test Tris belongs to three of the five factions (namely Dauntless, Erudite and Abnegation – her original faction), which they call divergent. This makes her a threat for the whole faction system so she has to keep her result a secret. On the selection day she chooses Dauntless as her new faction, as she always admired their fearlessness. Throughout the novel, the Dauntless demonstrate their fearlessness by jumping on and off trains traveling throughout the city.
Of course there is also a romantic subplot between Tris and one of her trainers in the Dauntless faction, nicknamed Four (you should at least watch the movie because of this good looking man!!).

As I urge you to watch this movie, I won’t tell you the end of it – although there isn’t really an end because there are two more books. This movie lasted two and a half hours and it was thrilling for two and a half hours! This should be enough reason to get up and watch this fantastic movie!

I am going to start reading the first book now.. Still excited even though I have already seen the film!

Here the movie trailer: ENJOY!

Eating insects? I did it!

Hey everybody, I am back with a new blog post! I know my last post is a little while ago, however, now I found a topic that I want to share with you guys. FOOD. I think this is a topic everyone feels invented to. I can’t think of any person I know who doesn’t love food?! Food is just one of the best things in life!

I always say that one should try out new things who one hasn’t tried before. But to be honest, I am a picky eater myself. I especially don’t like seafood. No mussels, no shrimps, no prawns, no calamari. It’s just something that really puts me off. I don’t want to see eyes looking at me while I am eating. What’s more, I don’t like the texture. Mussels are too “slimy” and calamari taste like rubber to me. Anyway, when I was in Thailand for nearly four weeks I tried “things” I never thought I ever would. On our first day a Thai woman was talking to us. She was selling scorpions – roasted scorpions on a skewer. My friend and I felt a bit adventurous on that day so we just bought one and tried it. Well, I have to admit it wasn’t even that bad. In fact it was a bit tasteless. I ate the head and the claws while my friend was eating the butt  :D A few days later we went to a food market in Bangkok where they sold tons of different food. We stopped to look at all the roasted insects when an old Thai woman bought a small bag full of grubs. I guess she saw our faces staring at the insects wondering if they would actually taste good, so she offered us a handful of them. Surprised by her generosity we suddenly knew we had to eat them. INSECTS. I would have never ever thought in my entire life that one day I will eat insects. Well, I did. And I liked it. They kind of tasted like peanuts. 

roasted scorpion

 

To sum up, sometimes you just have to try things before judging especially when you are visiting other countries. 

What good bloggers do!

Hey everybody! 

The new semester at university has already begun and my motivation for this semester is to be a lot (or at least a little) more active when it comes to blogging. The first thing I had to think about is `what good bloggers do’ so I can improve the quality of my own blog.

So why are some blogs better than others? What can you do to improve your personal blog and probably get some followers as well? To be honest, I am not really familiar with blogging. I am not that kind of person who loves to tell the world what she is doing or what she is thinking about a certain topic and I am also not very keen on following other persons (who I not even know?!) and reading about what they are wearing today (like some people write about in some fashion blogs) or what their personal opinion on a certain topic is. But as I need to do this for university and I think it is a very good way to improve your English I will try to become a better blogger. ALWAYS CHALLENGE YOURSELF.

 

To get a better feeling of how blog posts should look like our teachers gave us some links to those blogs who had been the most successful ones in the last semester (surprise, surprise – mine was not one of them). As I was checking out some of them, I realized that there are several aspects they always kept in mind when writing a post.

The first one is the

Layout

Well, of course this is the first element you are going to see when you are visiting a blog. A good blogger makes use of some pictures and colors. Sometimes “pictures speak louder than words”. Many people make use of various links and videos to support their topic or just to entertain their audience. This brings me to the next aspect – the audience.

Audience

This is probably the most important aspect. This is why bloggers are blogging. They want to inform other people about certain topics, about their interests or they simply want to entertain others. Some bloggers may also like to spread an issue which is important to them. I realized that most of the “good bloggers” are trying to involve the audience. A short greeting at the beginning as well as a good-bye at the end can be read in nearly every single one of the good blogs. Sometimes they are even asking some questions to make their readers thinking. 

 

Which leads me to the last (and probably most important aspect – yes, more important than the audience one) aspect: the topics!

Topics

A blog is successful because of the topics the writer is talking about. Without interesting and captivating topics you won’t get any audience at all. Most of the very excellent blogs have a certain topic which they bring up every time. Like a fashion blog or a food blog. There are people whose profession is to blog post. (Are they getting any money for this? Would be interesting to know.. ). In those blogs every single post is about food/fashion. As we are at university and do have some assigned posts to blog it is not possible to be one of these bloggers.
Anyway, the topics you choose to write about should be something you are interested in and passionate about. Because only if you are convinced about the topic yourself you will be able to catch the reader’s attention. 

In my opinion it is also important to entertain the reader during your post (Try some videos, pictures or even some music). Your posts also shouldn’t be too long. Who would read a post that consists of 10 pages?!?! I definitely wouldn’t! 

So what do I need to do to improve the quality of my blog? Well, I need to keep my audience involved during my posts. And I definitely need to change my layout.. right now!

See you.

"Ick bin ein Börliner" - JFK

Time to travel again! 

This time I visited BERLIN. I always wanted to go there especially because so many friends of mine told me how they liked it. Furthermore I am very interested in the historical background of Berlin. One can say that Berlin was the centre where all the major events were happening. The famous Berlin Wall divided the city into two parts and therefore divided the whole country (Germany) into two parts, namely the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik - German Democratic Republic) and the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Federal Republic of Germany). So the first sight my travelbuddy and I visited in Berlin was leftovers of the Berlin Wall. The largest part that is still in pretty good shape is called East Side Gallery and was very close to where we stayed. Several famous artists decorated it with amazing paintings as well as some great quotes.
We stayed in Berlin for 4 days and we were really lucky because we had wonderful weather. Surprisingly we could manage to see all the most important and most famous sights of Berlin on our first day. We visited the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, the Fernsehturm (which is more than 200m high and from where you have a breathtaking view across the whole city) and some popular streets. On our second day we went to „Checkpoint Charly“ which is the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War. There we checked out the museum where you can spend your whole day because there is just so much to see. What really impressed me where the stories about all the people who tried to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin. Some of them were really creative and built special planes and cars to get over to West Berlin. Others who actually lived in West Berlin just helped people from East Berlin to flee. They forged papers or hided persons in suitcases or in parts of the car where you would never imagine that it is even possible to breathe. The Berlin Wall separated the country for 28 years. It was constructed in 1961 and fell on the 9th of November 1989.
On our last day we went to a popular shopping street on the Kurfürstendamm. 

I had a great time in Germany and can’t wait to explore the next city!!

East Side Gallery