What I found on YouTube while "studying"

This is not going to be as bad as it may sound like at first. It's true, I distracted myself by watching documentaries on YouTube when actually I should have been studying, but hey, they were documentaries about topics that kind of relate to PC3! And even though I don't have to learn British culture for this PC and therefore nothing about the accents there :((( I stumbled upon a BBC documentary with Neil Oliver, a Scottish Archaeologist and television presenter. The documentary is called Faces of Britain and is mainly about how or if British people look differently depending on where in Britain they come from. It also raises the question if people in Wales for example look very distinct because of the Celtic influence in their genes (if there is such a thing, nobody knows, I don't want to spoiler you). Enough about the content, it is really very interesting and I don't want to tell you too much in case you want to watch it. You can find it on YouTube as a trilogy.

The reason why and how I found this documentary is actually a different and kind of stupid one: I felt the 'need' to listen to a Scottish accent because I think it is hilarious (in a very positive way!) and adorable, so I googled something like 'documentary Scotland bla bla' and found Neil Oliver. He has a very strong accent and you need to get used to it, but in my opinion he is very understandable and the content comprehensible and fascinating. 
Admittedly, I haven't watched part 3 yet (shame!), but I can definitely recommend part 1&2.

Here are the links:
Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLV63ip7pdI
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge16y6v-3lM
Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOFw_J5Uec4

Enjoy watching! :)

It All Started With A Big...

...Bang.

How well do you know our solar system? I hope you know that there are now 8 planets since some scientists have declared that poor Pluto is only a dwarf planet. But what are the others called?

There is Mercury, closest to the sun and now smallest planet of our solar system. 

Venus, hottest of them all with suraces temperatures of about 400° Celsius (that's why we can see it so well in the night sky). 

Our beloved Earth that we don't treat with much respect. 

The recently conquered Mars with its many volcanoes. 

Then there are the outer, or giant planets. They make up about 99% of the mass that orbits the sun.

Jupiter, about 320 times the Earth's mass.

Saturn with the characteristic rings (and after which an electronic's shop is called).

The coldest core of all the solar system planets has Uranus, which radiates very little heat into space.

And last but not least, Neptune, that is accompanied by several other smaller/minor planets in its orbit.

Now please try to pronounce them. Anything worth mentioning? Right, the second last one. Uranus. Ur-anus. Wait, what?

No worries, help is on the way! Just watch this really funny video on how to correctly pronounce the word Uranus. It might keep you from accidentaly saying something rather rude. :D It also holds a lot of interesting inormation about the origin of the name.

Intrigued? Here is a video of people pronouncing the name.

And because three's a charm, a third awesome video. The Solar System Rap. So much flow.

I hope you enjoyed this short science lesson :D

Ja Byłam Wolontariuszką

In my last post I explained to you what EVS is. I hope you remember something because now I am going to tell you my experiences of my EVS in…

KRAKÓW

A little bit about the city that was my home for 9 months and that I still take with me everywhere I go (w moim sercu).

Kraków is located in southern Poland on the Vistula river. It is the second largest city after the capital Warszawa and used to be the capital itself from 1038 to 1569.

It is a city with a lot of character and history. Unlike so many other European cities, Kraków was mostly spared of destruction during World War II and most of its buildings and structures are still the way they used to be. At least in the centre, if you go to the suburbs you can feel Russia’s influence and see its love for building houses that look like lego bricks.

Kraków is a very international city that attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, stag-party-people who just want to get drunk and come because booze is so cheap (it really is) as well as very cultured people who come because of all the culture and artsy things (which are really interesting and diverse). There are also a lot of Erasmus students here who meet the expectations of only doing Erasmus to get drunk and of course… EVS volunteers!

MY PROJECT

Name: Children and Youth Multicultural Education

Sending Organisation: Jugendwerk der AWO Württemberg e.V.

Coordinating Organisation: Stowarzyszenie Rozwoju i Integracji Młodzieży (STRIM)

Hosting Organisation: Przedszkole 38 w Krakowie

Volunteers in STRIM: 24

Volunteers in Przedszkole 38: 2

Duration: 9 months (01.10.2013 - 30.06.2014)

"Sowa Patrzy Na Ciebie" - view from my window on Ulica Dietla. The street is usually not that crowded, there was a Catholic parade to some important church.

WHAT I DID AT WORK

I worked in Przedszkole 38, more precisely in group 6 pszczółki (bees). The kids I worked with were between 5 and 7 and in their last year of kindergarten. In total, there were nine groups and 200 children between 3 and 7. My tasks where pretty mixed. I played with the kids, read books to them (in Polish..) and mostly drew owls for them. That was literally the first thing I did when I came to work the first day and had no idea what to do and did not understand a word of Polish. I sat down, drew an owly, and the kids got really excited and begged for more. The supply never satisfied the demand of owlies even though I drew at least a thousand of them throughout the nine months. I also helped the teachers and staff with daily tasks such as dressing the kids before going outside, giving them hugs when they seemed sad and giving them food when they looked hungry. Another thing, that didn’t take place so regularly, where my German and English lessons. The children already knew some English (colors, animals) and got really confused when I tried to teach them German because it sounded so similar to them. How do you explain 6-year-olds whose language you don’t speak that your language is not the same as another one they already know some words of? 

I tried a lot: ‘“Rot”, to jest czerwone po niemecku. Powtarzajcie.’ - ‘Rrrrred!’ - ‘Nieee!’

OTHER THINGS I DID, NOT AT WORK

-adopt a dog that got scared on New Year's: The poor thing apparently got separated from its humans during the fireworks. We found it walking around on its own looking very lost and immediately fell in love. I still don't know if it was male or female but we didn't really care about its gender and named it Sigmund. Like Freud. Sigmund was very well behaved and trained though he would only do as he was told in.. Polish! 'Siadaj! Dobrze Siiiigmund.' We brought him to a shelter and he was later reunited with his owners. And they lived happily ever after. :)

Sigmund psychoanalyzing a bowl.

-take care of another fluffy friend: one of my flatmates had a rat which me and my roommate took care of sometimes. Our flat was really old and kind of shitty, and the rat-person's room didn't have heating and it would sometimes get too cold for the rat. We gladly offered our help to play with and feed Damian. And to basically prevent it from freezing to death.

 'Help'

Damian in action

-learn more about the horrors of the past: Auschwitz/Birkenau is only about an hour and a half away from Kraków and of course I went. Even though I had been to a concentration camp before, the sheer size of it overwhelmed and nauseated me, not to mention all the gruesome, terrible things that happened there. There is also Schindler's Factory and a not so well known concentration camp (Płaszów) just outside the old town of Kraków.

-travel: to Warszawa, Toruń, Prague, London, Wrocław, Zakopane. It is really cheap to travel in Poland, especially with PolskiBus (you can get tickets from 1zl which is like 25ct, I shit you not). Warszawa and Toruń where the venues of my On-Arrival and Mid-Term training respectively. Me and my roommate went to Prague and London because neither of us had been there before and because we found really cheap flights. Wrocław and Zakopane are both very close to Kraków and definitely worth a visit. Especially Zakopane as it is in the mountains and very rural with a beautiful landscape around it.

-sophisticate myself: as mentioned above, Kraków is very artsy and cultural. There are a lot of different museums most of which are for free (at least on some days of the week). Kraków also has a very active Jewish community that organizes many events, for example the Jewish Culture Festival or The Night of Synagogues.

One of the best things are the free-walking-tours. They also offer them in Wrocław and Warszawa, and are about the city’s history, culture or where to eat.

-eat: the Polish cuisine is definitely underestimated. What I liked best was how obsessed they are with soup. In my kindergarten the children always got soup before lunch. And there are just so many different ones! Another delicious thing is zapiekanka which roughly translates to 'out of the oven'. There are two different kinds, one is made out of potatoes or pasta baked with cheese and the other is half a baguette topped with whatever you like. The traditional one is with mushrooms, cheese and chives. Close to where I lived was a market square called Plac Nowy with a lot of zapiekanka places, some of which are open 24/7.

The round thing in the middle is where you buy zapiekanka. There are a lot of stalls all around it. And also a lot of bars.

-yes, drink: even though people are more likely to associate beer with the Czech Republic, the Polish one is in my opinion a lot better. There are so many different flavours and brands, I didn't even get close to trying them all. Then there is wódka. I am not going to elaborate.

-buy too many clothes: second-hand shops are a big thing in Poland. And they are really cheap. Really. I bought so many nice and some not so nice clothes because they were only between 50ct and €2. I miss these shops a lot.

-organize an event for children in a café where you get tea for a smile and coffee for two smiles: me and my roommate, who was also a volunteer in a kindergarten, organized an event for local kids. We sang them songs which we composed ourselves (ok we did not compose them, but it is really easy to find new lyrics for The Yellow Submarine, and we wrote the lyrics ourselves) and played with them. The café where this fun afternoon took place is really nice. It is called Fińska and you should check it out if you are ever in Kraków.

-produce, direct and edit an awesome stop-motion video: for said project in the happy café. This video showed me and my roommate (whom I organized this event with) or more precisely our shoes trolling around Kraków. I had a lot of fun doing that :D

"Fun On a Bridge" - my shoes are the giraffes, obviously.

-try to learn Polish which is ‘the hardest language to learn’: yes, Polish is very hard to learn. No, it is not the most difficult language in the world, even though Polish people like to tell you otherwise. I think it is especially hard for people who are not of Slavic origin as the structure is just totally different, but many of my fellow volunteers who were for example from Slovakia or Belarus didn't really have problems learning it. At the beginning it was very hard for me since I didn't know anything, but over time it go easier to recognise words or patterns. It was also probably very helpful to work in a kindergarten because the language there is not so complex and difficult and the children really don't care if you can't pronounce words correctly (most of them can't themselves).

I fell in love with this city and can't emphasize enough how glad I am to have participated in the EVS. It opened my eyes and heart to Eastern Europe and has influenced me in ways I can't really describe. If I had the chance to do it again, I would without hesitation.

EVS - co to jest?

Why people should know about EVS and what they should know

Whenever people ask me what I did between high school and studying I’m like, ‘I did an EVS, you know. It was really cool, I met so ma..’ - ‘Wait, what’s an EVS?’ - *sigh* ’Let me explain...’

EVS is short for European Voluntary Service which is as of 2014 part of Erasmus+. I’m sure all of you know what Erasmus is. But unlike the student exchange, you don’t have to study to take part in the voluntary service. First and foremost, you need to be one thing - motivated.

  -Who can participate: Anyone between the ages of 18 and 30. All the EU countries take part in it but also others like Switzerland, Russia, Georgia or Armenia.

  -The length of your stay is between 3 and 18 months, and before you decide to do a short-term project, think twice: you can only do an EVS once in your life.

  -The EVS is funded by the European Union and you get ‘paid’ according to the country you go to. Yes, the name suggests differently, but you do get paid in a way. You get pocket and food money and sometimes money for a flat although mostly your host/coordinating organisation takes care of that.
  -Organisations involved: NGOs. The first organisation you need to find is a sending organisation in your home country. Even though they are relatively easy to find, don’t forget about them! They do all the paperwork. Then the search for the project begins. I know Spain is super cool and that all you ever wanted was to live in Paris for a while, but believe me when I tell you the project is the most important thing! It doesn’t matter if you live in your dream country when you don’t like what you’re doing (and even though it is voluntary work, it should be taken seriously). Depending on how big the project is and how many volunteers there will be in the end, there are going to be both a coordinating and a hosting organisation (big project with a lot of people) or only a hosting organisation (smaller project with not so many people). I can’t tell you which is better, I think it doesn’t really matter. Like I said before, look for a PROJECT you like.
-The projects are very diverse. You like kids? Work in a school or kindergarten. You want to experience what it is like to work with disabled people? There are a lot of opportunities from working in a home or school to teaching them instruments. There are also some projects to do with animals but they are very rare and very popular. I heard about one girl working with bears in Croatia and another in the Netherlands working with monkeys. (I was so jealous)

I think this is true for most of the volunteers: during your EVS, you don’t really like the trainings and while you’re at one all you want to do is get drunk with the other volunteers and not really do what the organizers have planned. But as soon as the EVS is over and you’ve come back to real life, you realize something is missing. Yes, trainings! Sharing your experiences, funny moments or fears with other people who know exactly what you are talking about because they’ve experienced very similar things. As you can see in the sample dialogue at the beginning, most people don’t know what an EVS is. And it can be really frustrating to not really be able to share this with your friends when they don’t  know what youre talking about when you say ‘Oh man, my On-Arrival was so weird… But nothing compared to the Mid-Term! I mean, what does the National Agency think? We didn’t learn anything about YouthPass or Salto, not even my CO or HO could tell me what it actually is..’ Yes, what? Train station. That is why I am really glad to have had Germany as my sending country because they organize a comeback event every year for all the poor volunteers who went abroad and now have nobody to properly share their experiences with. Before I confuse you even more, let me explain you what kind of trainings there actually are:

  -Depending on your sending organisation, they might have a pre-departure training where they tell you the most important things like the rights you have as a volunteer, tell you how you can complain when something is wrong and to whom etc. Even though most of this will also be covered in your host country and you will be confused and shocked upon arriving no matter how well prepared you are, it gives you a certain safety and helps you calm your nerves.

  -Everyone will have an on-arrival training in their host country. The name correctly suggests that it takes places shortly after your arrival (but it can vary from one day to three months after..). You will talk about your projects, meet people from other parts of the country you’re in and therefore be able to find places to crash when you travel the country. (Trust me, this is important. Even though you do get paid, it’s not a lot, and it’s always nice to have someone you know in a city you don’t. And to save money.)

 -Now it depends on how long your project is. Long-term projects (6 months or more) include a mid-term training that takes places roughly in the middle of your stay. Again you share experiences and meet new people, but you also start talking about what to do after the project.

-After your project, your sending organisation might propose a welcome-back-training for again sharing experiences but this time with people who were also in different countries. I mentioned the comeback before, which is not organized by your sending organisation but by the National Agency (of Germany). I attended it in November 2014, and it was huge. Have a glimpse: comeback2014

Another important thing is the YouthPass: a document verifying your participation and documenting your progress and skills you might have adopted during your project. I’m not sure how useful it really is as not many people know about it, but it’s always nice to have an additional something in your application that states how awesome, skilled and compassionate you are.

I could go on for ever about this, and you can be sure that I will tell you about my EVS very soon. If you have any questions, feel free to write me. I literally can’t stop talking about it so I would gladly tell you some more :D

To all my fellow TKK students: As we have to spend some time abroad, this could be a very good way of doing so. Most of the languages are ‘covered’ as you can also go to Russia or Serbia. (About Arabic I’m not sure..) I know I said before to not look for a specific country, but that was mostly to make clear not to underestimate the importance of the project itself!