Das Singen ist des Bernhard's Lust...

It's been a few weeks already that I'm in Revelation Choir, one of JMU's clubs & societies. As I've always enjoyed singing but hardly ever got the chance to sing together with sombody else I thought It'd be the right thing for me - and it is: I'm loving it! In the three or four weeks that I'm in we've already learned a few songs and - even though my voice isn't especially great - in a choral context it sounds good. And it's such a liberating feeling to be singing out loudly! Hehe, I even managed to draw Joel and his flatmate Hans in... :-)
Tonight we've got choir meeting again and then, a few hours later, I shall depart from Liverpool to go to London and ultimately Linz...

アングリカン教会のミサ。

Today I went to an Anclican mass for the first time. Normally I go to the Catholic one but this time curiosity got the better of me and so I went to the 10:30 service at the Cathedral of Liverpool. Now, as I've observed it, masses of these two creeds are quite similar whereas there are some differences, for example the profession of faith is slightly different, offertories are put into little paper envelopes instead of an offertory bag, you kneel at communion, etc.
However, in my opinion not enough to justify all the wars that have been fought between followers of the two creeds. Anyway.
What else is going on? Of course I've been translating again - new translations can be found here - and my flight to Austria leaves in two days. And I still enjoy working at the library.

Z'ruck hoam noch Ösireich.

Thanks to the flexibility and understanding of my employers I actually managed to get 1 1/2 weeks off and with this nice little holiday-time on my hand I'll be in the good old homeland again from 24th October until 3rd November. Beer. Mountains. Mozart. Hawl-la-ray-dee-rooooooooooooo! *lol*

Je work dans la bibliotheque.

I like books. Thus I like libraries. I wouldn't mind working in one. And I want some work experience. With these thoughts on my mind I went to our uni's libraries last Tuesday and, voila! I was lucky! Only one day later Work Bank called me with a job offer and a few phone calls later I got the job.
So now I'm minding the counter of a university library! It's interesting enough but not too stressful, just the right thing for a part-timer. Yes!

What's the time? It's time to get ill!

This quote by the Beastie Boys to describe my present situation. Since Friday or so I'm having what turned out to be a macker cold, starting off with a sore throat, advancing to a running nose and culminating in diabloic headaches. Raibu isu wandafuru.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't normally go yapping like "Hey look at how sick I am, ain't I just poor?", this sorta crap I don't like too much to be honest. It's just, I want to write about something. And there's not much going on at the moment worth writing about. Except for my cold. So I write about my cold. Tres simple!
And there was actually an interesting remark, made today by JC in Japanese class, he said something like "...and in Japan they wear little gas masks when they have a cold." Yeah, as if I knew where to get little gas masks in Scouseville! And who's gonna pay, the NHS? Haha, best joke in months.
However, the whole thing does have the advantage that I'm spending more time in my room, thus having more time to study. An argumentation that is ruined again by the fact that ill people don't tend to study very effectively. Ha! One-nil.
Anyway, I'm gonna end this post now cos it's not going anywhere. So much about pointless waffle. Nah, at least I practiced my written English again.
By the way, this is the 200th post on this digital haven for my words. Congratulations! I'm gonna get the champagne out now. Want some? Too bad they didn't invent electronic material transmission yet...

As evenings should be.

After hours of studying Japanese in the morning and writing various emails and reading in the afternoon, yesterday evening was really as I imagine a relaxed and laid-back evening, sorta my ideal. At eight or so I went over to Jim's room, Joel and Chris were already hangin out there and while Joel handled his guitar, Jim had a go at Final Fantasy VII in Japanese and Chris was sharing his insider infos from having completed the game like 1000 times I had a look at the sometimes interesting Japanese phrases and Jim and I discussed possible translations. Togetherness. Next thing we played some Super Mario again, one of the few console games where I can actually keep up with my console-keen mates. When it came to watching some videos then, Wallace & Gromit was on and at the sight of Wallace getting some crackers out of the cupboard Jim exclaimed: "I'd well be up for some crackers and cheese!" Problem: we had none of these in the house. Solution: Tesco Express. 10 minutes walk, arrival, astonishment. About one hour before closing they were selling out all their sandwiches for absolutely ridiculous prices. I got four prawn-mayonnaise sandwiches, my all-time favourite, for like one quid. 1/5 of the original retail price. 1/10 of the ripoffs at the student shop. The pick of the month! From now on you'll probably see me hangin out at Tesco at like half eleven every other day... :-)
Anyway, with our cheapo-food and crackers and cheese we were returning, watching some videos again. Somehow we came to talk about Austria and German stuff and Jim put that cool dubbed version of the Austrian "Kasperl" (similar to the British Punch and Judy) on. It's actually well dodgy but also dead funny and as it's of course in German and I wanted my mates to understand the jokes I gave interpreting a try for the first time. And really, it worked. I think they found it funny, despite not understanding the original language. Quite reassuring for me!
Then some more Beavis and Butthead, then those Super Mario cartoons, that are so cheesy that they're good again already, some prawn sandwiches, a chicken fajita and going to bed at around one.
So nice to have been able to spend an evening where no one was boozing for a change, no noisy locations and no buying of hopelessly over-priced drinks. Couchpotatoship rules!!

NES - best console ever made.

Yesterday evening, Jim invited me round for a few hours of console playing fun. We started off with Lego Star Wars, a fast race through the forests hunting down storm troopers. One Vodka - Red Bull and a particularly hard passage later we then switched to Jim's NES - emulator and played classics like Super Mario Brothers or Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Eventually, also Chris and Joel joined in, more people, more vodka, more games and then two or three episodes of Beavis and Butthead, accompanied by Chris' hairdryer-solo improvisation and Joel playing on an ampless guitar. An evening to my liking.
I also uploaded little stories number three and four, they can be found here.

Livin' la vida de un traductor...

I really enjoy translating lately. That's why I'm not only doing the recommended minimum - translating JS's little stories - but also have a go at urban legends from the English-speaking world and legends and tales from Austria.
I enjoy myself shifting stuff from one language into another!
So, I've added quite a few new stories to my translation blog. If you fancy reading them, go ahead and do so. And maybe leave a short comment? That's always a nice idea... ;-)
This week I'll also post little stories no. 3 and 4.

Election Sunday.

Today, parliamentary elections took place in Austria and full of excitement I'm listening to the latest news on the radio (thank God you can listen to Austrian radio stations via internet). My favoured party, the Green Party, has gained about one percent and thereby accomplished its goal of getting more than 10%. Hooray!
The results you see in the image are not the final results yet: firstly, as of yet still 2% of the casted ballots remain uncounted and secondly, because absentee ballots will only be counted in a week.
So the final results of today's elections will be available next week. However, big changes are not very likely. The Green Party might still overtake the Freedom Party but that's quite unlikely too, because with 0,7% the distance between those two parties is quite large.
So, it's the People's Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Freedom Party, the Green Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria that will constitute the Austrian Nationalrat.
Which parties will then actually form the Austrian government for the next four years, is normally decided within the next month. This time it might not go so smoothly though. We'll see...