university dreams

I get these university dreams almost always at times where uni stresses me out. I had that in school, too. Usually they are about messing up an exam and the teacher telling me the horrible result.
This time I dreamed about the class "Gutachten". I had the exam for it yesterday, so I guess it makes sense. I don't remember much of the dream, just that we were in the room where we wrote the exam and the professor (the same one I dreamed about a couple of nights back) told us the grades - but not the grades of the exam from yesterday, but the final grades, which will influence the overall grade of the entire diploma. She started with a girl called "Lilith Poppe" (who is actually in that class) and then said "well, what do you think she should get? I'm torn between 1.0 and 1.5" And everyone was like "1.0!". The professor, by the way, was sitting on a desk in the middle of the room. This went on for a while and then she looked at me and said "Well... Frau Morgenroth... I've decided to give you a 3.5" in a voice that indicated that I should be happy about it and when I looked at her in a shocked way she continued "Come on... you are a very likeable person, but we all know you're a little underprivileged here" tapping at her head to indicate that she obviously thought I was stupid. I felt attacked and got furious, got up and yelled at her "I got an IQ of 130!". I don't really remember what happened after that. I just remember that later I thought it was stupid that I yelled that and that I shouldn't have gotten so mad at all.

Stressed out cooking

Another dream! Somehow my dreams always come in groups. When I can remember one, it's much more likely that I will remember one in the next night as well. I should do a study about this.

Anyway, the dream was about some kind of family event. A big family event like a wedding or something. But it wasn't a wedding, because the main person of the event was my 12 year old cousin. However, her parents weren't my aunt and her husband, but friends of my sister. The woman was Asian-looking. I can't remember the guy, though. Anyway, I had promised to help out, so I went to their place and asked what I could do and because they were busy and just running around like crazy doing things, I suggested that I could cook and bake two cakes. The woman said "yes, that's fine". I tried to talk to her about what cakes I should bake, but she was too busy to really talk to me. I thought that I would probably do a peanut-currant-vanilla-cake (which, by the way, is soo yummie. I have to post the recipe some day) and a New York Cheesecake. I then cut up some Mango and offered some to the woman while saying "so, is there anything you guys don't like or are allergic to or something?". She took some Mango, ate it and said "Yes, mango. None of us likes mango".
One of the things I was supposed to do, was taking my cousin and some other kids to some place together with my sister. I don't know exactly what kind of place that was, but it had something to do with the event. However, my cousin asked me "um, could someone else take us? I'm embarrassed in front of my class mates if you two take me". How charming. Anyway, then it suddenly turned out that the event was that exact day and not some other day (it wasn't yet clear which day it would be before) and they told me "great, you said you'd cook, so cook". So all of a sudden I had to cook for all the guests. I didn't even know where all the stuff was in the kitchen and it was very messy and weirdly organized, e.g. the knifes weren't even in the kitchen, but in the hallway. I started cutting up some bell peppers and pickled hot peppers, trying first how hot they were - they were not hot at all. I then tried to find a pan and then took a step backwards, when the Asian-looking woman was scurrying around again in the kitchen. I thereby knocked over a pile of red wine bottles, breaking some of them. I felt so sorry, because I knew that the people didn't have much money and now I had destroyed their wine! It was all so stressful and horrible!
Later in my dream I talked to my mom, who was the one who was now going to take the kids to wherever. We talked about how small the apartment was and for some reason that lead us to a conversation about Rome and I said that I loved Rome, but that it was probably really expensive, to which she replied that she once looked at an apartment there which was pretty small, but only cost 217 Euros a month. She didn't move in their, though, because she decided to stay in Germany.

A weird dream

Ha, finally a dream again that I can remember.
First of all: it all took place in a video game, but rather then playing the game I was actually in the game, walking around in the world and everything. It started out in a little old Italian town and was kind of Assassin's Creed-ish. I ran around (I never just walked. I mean, who _walks_ in video games? You always run), climbing on buildings and stuff. Then I got to a castle, where the video game was suddenly more of a Zelda-Mario-mashup and also the graphics were way worse, kind of N64ish. Zelda was crossing a bridge from one tower to the other one in a video-scene where you couldn't do anything. You could then see Bowser (who was huuuge. About as big as the whole castle) approaching. He saw Zelda and instantly fell in love with her. He was so in awe that every time he saw her, he opened his mouth. The person that played the video game with me (he was not in the game, just playing it with me, I don't know how) said: "Gosh, I hate it when he opens his mouth like that! It looks so weird and retarted!" - well, it did look weird. Very badly animated and more like a oval closing and opening.
Then I was in the castle. I can't remember that part too well. I just remember that one of my professors was there, too, which who I fell in love. She fell in love with me too, but we could never get intimate or anything, because there were also people around. By the way, she is not particulary hot at all. Later I met my mother, who picked me up on a motorbike (awesome!), which I didn't like because I wanted to stay with the professor.

31) The book you've given to people most often

Final episode, wohooo.
Also, another time I don't know what to answer. I don't remember ever giving away the same book twice. So I will just answer a couple of similar questions:
a) The book that has been given to you the most often: That's the book I already talked about in this post. It was given to me twice, which is horrible. I hate when this happens, because most of the time, things that more than one person gives to you, are great presents that you really like - otherwise it's very unlikely that more than one person thinks it's a good idea to give it to you. So it's an awesome present, but you can't really use it, because you already got it.

b) The first book you ever gave someone as a present
I remember this very clearly, because when I bought this book, it was 10 DM, and I was pretty young (probably about 9), so 10 DM was a lot of money. I hardly ever spent that much money on one thing those days. The book was Das zerbrochene Schwert of the Alanna-series I mentioned in this post. It was a birthday present for my sister and, to be honest, the money wasn't spend all that selfless, because actually I wanted her to read that book to me. But she wanted it, too, so I guess it is okay :)

c) The coolest book that you ever got as a present
That's probably one of the coolest (if not the coolest) present I ever got: a book written for me. Do you know these books where you read a part and then you get to decide how the story goes on? Like, for example, your goal is to get off an island or something and then you can choose "I go to the beach" or "I climb up the mountain" and so on? It's one of those books, written by my sister filled with childhood memories, inside jokes and awesomeness. Plus, not only did she write the book, she also made the actual book herself. Like, she bound the book, pages and all. She rocks.

30) Why the hell hasn't this book been turned into a movie?

I had too much wine, but let's do this anyway.
It's kind of redundant to write about the Hobbit because now it's being turned into a movie, but I can't think of any other book (that I didn't already write about), so deal with it.
When The Lord of the Rings was made into movies, I really wished that they had made The Hobbit first. After all, it happens before the story of LotR and they already had all the locations etc. anyway. Also, I actually like The Hobbit better. I'm just a fan of childrens books. Or maybe it's just nostalgia. Anyway: It's awesome, I'm glad they're making the movie and I'll definitely watch it.

29) Why the hell has this book been turned into a movie?

Or rather: Why the hell has this book been turned into SUCH A F***ING BAD movie?! I don't even know where to start my rant! The movie doesn't even include half of the story that's in the book! Fuchur, the dragon, looks like a f***ing dog! A giant dog! WTF, movie making people, don't you know what a dragon looks like? Or have you never read his description in the book? Can you even read? I doubt it, because if you could, you wouldn't make such a HORRIBLE movie!

... anyway, I don't think I need to write much about the book. It's a very well known book and if you've never read it, go ahead and do so. It's general education. I love Michael Ende, by the way. His books are deep but still fun to read for children. And the Neverending Story shows an amount of creativity that amazes me. Awesome.

Poem

I stumbled upon this poem (in my brain) and thought I'd share it. It will probably not make sense to anyone, so it's okay if you don't particulary like it. Also, it doesn't have a title. And even though it says "I", it's not particulary about me. Enjoy. Or don't.

I am a boy, I am a girl.

I'm all that's in between.

I am my brain, I am my genes

I am society.

I'm stuck in hell, I'm stuck in life,

and all I want

is 

to be free.

I'm not a girl, I'm not a boy,

I'm nothing in between.

28) Fortunately, this book has been turned into a movie

It's kind of hard to think of a book that fits that statement, because mostly, I don't like the movies, when I read the book first. So maybe the only reason I like The Green Mile is, that I watched the movie before I read the book. Actually, before I read any book by Stephen King. The book, in fact, made me start reading Stephen King novels, which was the only thing I read between 13 und 16 and my enthusiasm for them ceased just a few years back.
The book (or rather: the books, because it was published in several books at first) tells its story from the point of view of Paul Edgecomb, a corrections officer in charge of the Death Row inmates in the 1930s. One day he gets a new inmate, a huge black guy called John Coffey, who supposedly raped and killed two little girls. This guy, who is not exactly the brightest crayon in the box, turns out to have healing hands and also to be innocent. The book touches a lot of interesting subjects like capital punishment, racism and abuse of power. It's also quite amazing, that the movie is that good. If you ever tried to watch a couple of Stephen King movies, you know that it's quite hard to find good ones.

27) A book, in which the main character is your "ideal"

Finally! I've been aching to write about these books forever and they were so good for many categories, but the only ones I could think of for this one, so I saved them. The book on the left is the first of four books by Tamora Pierce about Alanna, following her life from the age of 10 to somewhere in her early twenties. Those books are definitely the ones I've read the most often - or that I had read to me the most often. The books are for people over the age of 12, but my sister got the first one for her 9th or 10th birthday and read it to me (I was 7 or 8) and I loved them immediately.
The book is set in a fantasy world, but without dwarves and elves etc. It's mostly just a made-up world that is kind of like our middle ages but with magic and other gods. It starts out with the fact that Alanna's father, a nobleman, wants to send her to a school where she can learn how to use her magic and become a lady and her twin brother to court, where he is supposed to become a knight. Unfortunately, the boy loves magic but hates fighting (and is very bad at it), while Alanna loves hunting and weapons, but doesn't like magic, so they decide to switch places. She dresses up as a boy and becomes a knight eventually, but not without hard work, adventures and also people finding out about it. At the end of book 2 everyone finds out about it during a fight and she leaves the court, but returns at the end of book 4 as the right hand of the new king, one of her best friends and also her ex lover.
As a child, Alanna was definitely my ideal. She was strong and brave (which I was not) and also strong-minded (which I was) and highly disciplined and persevering (which I was not, but which I became eventually). Yep, I definitely wanted to be a knight rather than a princess as a kid. And now I'm just becoming a psychologist... lame :(

26) A book you would read to your kids

Another book by Janosch, that I will most definitely read to my kids, if I ever get crazy enough to have any. The book is about a family of mice. The parents want to have a baby but when Mrs. Mouse gets pregnant, they start fighting, because Mrs. Mouse wants to have a girl, who can help her cook etc. but Mr. Mouse wants a boy, who is brave and daring. When Mrs. Mouse finally gives birth, the problem seem to be solved, because they have twins - a boy and a girl. They call the girl Seidenpfote (silkypaw), because it sounds so soft and feminine and the boy Löwenzahn (Lion's tooth or also Dandelion (it's the same word in German)), because it sounds strong and brave. However, when the kids grow up, they don't turn out the way their parents had planned. While Seidenpfote becomes wild and brave and adventerous, Löwenzahn becomes smart and brainy and helps his sister fulfill her adventurous dreams.

This book is great in two ways: a) it shows your child that girls can be brave and wild and boys quiet and smart and (probably more importantly) b) it will remind me, that it is never a good idea to try to make your child something that it's not - even though with me it would be the other way round. I would much rather have a wild and brave girl and a quiet and nerdy boy then a girl who loves pink and wants to be a princess or a boy who loves football.

25) A book, in which the main character describes you pretty accurately.

Damn it. I forgot to post yesterday! Here is yesterdays post, the one for today will follow tonight:

Um... I don't think such a book exists. Actually, I don't think that a book like this exists for anyone, a) because I think each person is unique and b) because I think no matter how hard an author tries (and some authors are really good at it!), noone will ever create a fictional character that is as complex as a real person. If I wrote a book, the main character would probably be a lot like me, even though I would deny that and even though I would try to make him/her very different from me. The reason for that, I think, is, that when you think about a fictional character, you only think about a couple of aspects and neglect others. These are different for each person. The things you neglect are aspects, that you think go without saying, or actually – that you don't think about at all. For example, my characters (role playing characters; but I think the same is true for characters in books) all tend to be very individualistic. Which is true, I admit, but which is something I never even thought about. It was never part of the concept! It just happened because I was raised this way and never thought about it while creating a character.

Interestingly, the question „what do you think is typical for my characters?“ reveals a lot about oneself, but equally about the person, who answers the question. E.g. I've asked that question myself and two friends, and not even one of the answers was identical. They were all completely different.

So, if I ever write my novel „the avarage life of a vain person“, that will probably be the book I should review here.

24) A book noone would have thought you've read.

The first book that comes to my mind is „Twilight“, but as I already reviewed that (and using the same book twice is lame), I'm gonna go with Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I don't think people are surprised that I read it, but probably that I liked it. I think Jane Austen has a very subtle and cool sense of humor. Also, you can't read this book without a high British voice – either in your head, or in your vocal chords. My sister and I actually read this book to each other while on vacation (mostly at the airport, where we had to spend about 12 hours) and it was quite amusing. I like English from past centuries, even though after some sentences, that went on for about half a page, both of us were like „Zelt???“.

23) The book on your shelf that has the least pages

"Kindertag in Bullerbü" by Astrid Lindgren has only 22 pages and thus wins the race. Did you know that a lot of books for children don't have numbers on the pages? Well, I do know, after having to count the pages of some of them. The book takes place in Bullerbü, which probably everyone, who knows Astrid Lindgren, knows. It tells the story of the older kids trying to organize a special day for the little sister of one of the boys. She starts crying and hates every activity the boys thought of (putting her on a swing, dressing up as scary robbers etc.) but she loves the girls' activities (playing with dolls, showing her baby animals etc.). I don't remember liking this book that much as a child. Maybe I thought it was too full of gender stereotypes even back then. Actually, that is really weird for Astrid Lindgren. Think of die Brüder Löwenherz, Ronja Räubertochter, Pippi Langstrumpf or Kalle Blomquist. Way less stereotypes there. Anyway, the book is illustrated by Ilon Wikland, who I think is one of the best childrens' books illustrators ever. But in this book I don't even like the pictures much. Ilon Wikland, by the way, was Estonian and her illustration of the Castle in Ronja Räubertochter was inspired by the castle of the town where she grew up, called Haapsalu. I went there in 2007 and it's a beautiful town. Go there.

22) The book on your shelf, that has the most pages

... is an English dictionary. Which isn't very interesting to write about. The only other book I own, that has also more than 2000 pages, is "1000 recipes to try before you die", which, as you might have guessed, is a cook book that contains 1000 recipes. The recipes are from all over the world and are ordered by origin. Some recipes call for ingredients, that are kind of hard to get (e.g. kangaroo sausage) but I like that they stick to the original ingredients, so you can decide yourself if you want to substitute them. Unfortunately, they don't give suggestions for substitutes. I tried a couple of the recipes in there, and they were all really good. It's a really cool book. The downside of a book of this variety is, of course, that the author can't go into much detail about the peculiarities of each cuisine and the culture behind it, which is something I really like about country-specific cook books. In this book it's mainly just the recipes with a little additional information.

21) The worst book you've read at school

Well, the problem is that I simply didn't read the books I didn't like. One that I started reading and did not like AT ALL is Die Blechtrommel by Günter Grass. I know, he's supposed to be a really amazing writer and shit, but I just didn't like it at all. I didn't like his style, I didn't like what happened, I thought the metaphors were fucking weird. Well, maybe one of the reasons was also, that I read it in a class that was held by a teacher, who was old, sick (in a physical sense and also sick of being a teacher), cynical and who was even less motivated than the students - which is kind of an accomplishment at a school where you had to deal with German teachers like that for 9 years. Well, not all of them were like that. We had a really nice, old German teacher in grade 5 and 6. He was kind of stuck in the 1950s, but that's okay. Then we had a really good, motivated young teacher in grade 7. Grade 8: Herr B. - old, not motivated at all, hated women, spend more time telling stories than actual teaching, enjoyed bullying girls. After that we had Herr C. ... oh, Herr C. He was adorable and nice and so trying to be a good teacher - but unfortunately he was kind of bipolar and most of the time just depressed. Also, he had no authority at all - which is not always a bad thing, but it is a bad thing in 9th grade. After that we had a REALLY young teacher, who tried (too hard) to get authority, but who failed miserably at it, which made all his effort useless. He might have been a good teacher if anyone would ever have listened to him. But at least he did something I would consider teaching at all. 11th grade: Herr C. again. And then two years of the first teacher I described. Yay. Bavarian schools are so great.

20) The best book you've read at school

Oh boy. I was one of those kids who automatically assumed that books that you had to read during your German class, sucked, and who therefore didn't read most of them. The internet already existed at that time, so nobody noticed. I did read the books in my English class, though. One of the reasons for that is probably that almost all of my German teachers sucked balls (and I don't mean that in a literal way, even though one of them was gay). One book that I did enjoy, though, were Die Physiker by Dürrenmatt. I don't really remember much of it (It's been such a long time since then! I'm old!), but I remember that I liked it a lot. Also, it takes place at a lunatic asylum, which is always a nice setting.

Another book that I liked a lot was Das Parfum by Süskind, which shouldn't surprise anyone who knows my slight obsession with serial killers. I didn't like the end, though. That seemed a bit over the top to me.
I wouldn't say that any of these books was "the best", though, because I don't really know any objective way to judge which book is "the best". These were just some that I actually read and liked.

19) A book that you always wanted to read.

Well, I guess "always" is a bit of an overstatement here. I certainly didn't want to read Marx as a kid, neither as a teenager. I've been wanting to read Das Kapital for a couple of years now, though. I don't know if I ever will, but I definitely think I should.
Other than that I don't have much to say today. I feel hung over and bläh and Tschüß.

18) The book with the most beautiful cover that you own

Another hard choice. I'll go with "Biological Psychology" by Rosenzweig, Breedlove & Watson, which is, by the way, also a very well written and very well designed book. Why do I like this cover so much? First of all, it's beautifully drawn. I think everyone can agree that Michelangela was a very skilled artist. Moreover, he was a fucking badass! Being audacious enough to paint a human brain on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in times when the Christian church forbade science and medicine and depiction of the dissected human body? Fucking awesome! Also, there might be a hidden message in this: maybe our brain is the reason for a lot of the things the church believes god is the reason for? A thought like this in 1508! And then painting a human brain in a chapel right in front of the eyes of the church! I love this man. He must have had balls the size of Russia.

Also, for people who are like "Brain? I don't see a brain!": have a look at this:

And, as a comparison, at this:

See? See? It's a brain! ... Yes, I could geek out about this forever. I love this picture enough that I own it as a 5000-pieces puzzle that I did twice already, by the way. You can have a look at me magically putting it together here:

17) Close your eyes and take a random book from your shelf

This time I used my sister to randomly choose one of my shelves and then I picked one of the books. The result is "Bermudez Triangle" by Maureen Johnson. It's a pretty typical book for teenagers: about friendship, love and relationships. However, what makes it better then your avarage teen-book is that it's also about finding sexual identity, without being a book about homosexuality. The story follows three best friends (the Bermudez Triangle). One of them leaves for the summer. The other two start to develop romantic feelings towards another, hook up and when the other friend returns, nothing is the way it was. Maureen Johnson is a good writer - the book is funny and real. But if you're not a girl between 12 and 17, I doubt that you will find this book very exciting.

16) 9th book from the right on your bookshelf

Same problem as yesterday. This time I decided to the "books I read for school and the Bible and the book Mormon"-shelf (in case you are wondering why I got the book Mormon: It was one of these days where just every girl you meet looks SO hot to you and then I met this Mormon girl and she had such an adorable American accent and so when she was like "would you like to meet up to talk about God?" I was like "yeah... yeah, sure, whatever you say" and then she came over and gave me that book. I wish I could tell you that I converted her by hot lesbian sex, but unfortunately I didn't. Well, so it goes). The 9th book was "Die Räuber" by Schiller. I read and reviewed it in 10th or 11th grade, a time, in which I thought it doesn't get much better than Sturm und Drang. I don't remember much of it. Just that it's about two brothers. One of them, Franz, sucks and is a cold hearted asshole, while the other one, Karl, is cool and becomes a robber. And there is a girl... because there is always a girl. And it's dramatic. Which is good. I like dramatic. But not in real life.

15) The fourth book from the left on your shelf

Who the hell has only one bookshelf? Anyway, so I took the fourth book from the left from one of my shelves, my cook book shelf to be exact. The book is called "Indian Summer - die indianische Küche". So it's about native American food. But Germans still call them Indians, because we're ignorant bastards (or at least less political correct. I remember a quiz in elementary school, in which I was the only kid who had written "a black man" as an answer to one of the questions and everyone else had written "Neger" - I don't think I need to translate that word into English. Oh, and Neger counted as a correct answer, too.).
This book has come into my possession when a close friend of my parents died. She was a little obsessed with Native American culture and as I am a little obsessed with cook books, my parents gave me the book when they cleaned out her apartment. I have do admit that I have never tried out any of the recipes, but they look and sound really good! I don't think I ever really had a closer look at the book, but when I did yesterday I really felt like cooking some of that stuff. It sounds delicious. The recipes are all kind of adjusted to European taste, though, and the author decided not to use recipes that include snake meat, hedgehog or skunk.