Okay, guys, let's do this with a bit less chaos than the last two ones.
INFO: "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, published 2008, with illustrations by Dave McKean. The book was a #1 New York Times bestseller and won several awards. It says ages 10 and up on the back cover but I'm seventeen and loved it and I'll probably give it to my Dad to read because he'll enjoy it. So, whatever.
SUMMARY: When his parents and older sister are killed by a mysterious man, a baby boy is adopted by two ghosts living in the graveyard opposite his house. They name him Nobody Owens and raise him as their son - together with the other graveyard inhabitants and Bod's guardian Silas. The Graveyard Book is the story of how Bod grows up and learns more and more about both the living and the dead world.
EXECUTION: Have any of you read Rudyard Kipling's "Stories From The Jungle Book"? Unlike the Disney film (which I also love), the book is more of a collection of short stories, a series of Mowgli's adventures in the jungle (and a few other stories) that sort of follow him growing up and having a family on his own. While reading The Graveyard Book I thought that it was very similar to Kipling's work, and Gaiman says in the acknowledgements that Kipling was a huge inspiration in the process of writing The Graveyard Book. With all the similarities, it's still sort of different but not any less beautiful and exciting. Along the course of the book you learn more and more about the world of the dead and the supernatural (like ghouls and witches and some sort of werewolves) but you also watch Bod learn about the world of the living and about how he came to the graveyard and why. The book is completely coherent and the system works really well.
STYLE: Neil Gaiman writes beautifully. For those who don't know, he wrote the Doctor Who episodes "The Doctor's Wife" (S06 E04) and "Nightmare in Silver" (S07 E12), both of which were among the best episodes in the last three seasons. In The Graveyard Book he somehow manages to combine a certain "adult" poetry in his writing and Bod's (very authentic) childish perspective on life which changes ever so gently as he grows up. There were more than a few sentences or paragraphs that made me think "Wow. If I could write like that...". He's simply brilliant. And he has a way of playing with certain words or phrases that just makes me admire him. You can feel when reading how much this story meant to the author, and in my opinion, that's definitely a good thing.
MESSAGE: This is a coming-of-age story. It's about Bod growing up and finding out who he is and who he wants to be. He finds his courage and makes some mistakes and he's afraid and everything. This story shows how difficult it is to grow up and make your own decisions but it's also about parents. It's about loving someone and having to let that someone go, and not wanting to let them go but deep down knowing it has to be. When I finished reading, I had this sort of feeling that you want to cry but can't because it's so sweet and strange and beautiful.
ALSO: Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book. His acceptance speech is printed in the end of the book, and in addition to being sort of funny and smart and beautiful it also inspired me like crazy. This speech made me want to follow my dream and tell stories and make things up and make people happy with my stories. It also sort of taught me about why I love the books I love so much, and both the speech and the actual story stayed with me after I closed the book. I think I will read The Graveyard Book many, many times in the future.
CONCLUSION: This is not a book for pure entertainment. This is one of those books that you read when you feel lonely, or sad, or when you need someone to talk to and there's nobody there. It's a soulbook like chocolate is soulfood. This is a book for children and teens and adults. It's wonderful.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
BREAKFAST
This is part one of a series of posts about food. Don't ask me why. I just think I have stuff to say.
So when you read or hear about eating healthy and living well and stuff you will inevitably hear about the importance of breakfast. The most important meal of the day, energy for the day, skipping breakfast will kill you, all that. Now, I'm not a nutritionist or any sort of authority on this topic, but like everyone on the Internet, I have opinions.
I didn't have breakfast today. I returned from a vacation at two o'clock in the morning and slept until eleven. Because I wasn't hungry then, I waited until two pm and had lunch. And I feel fine. The thing is, no matter how important it is to start the day by filling up with energy, eating when you're not really hungry or even forcing yourself to eat really can't be healthy.
During schooltime I get up pretty early, and I just eat something sweet and probably very bad for me because that early in the day I can't even think about nutritious, healthy food and the shock of being woken up by my alarm clock requires therapy. But because of by now eleven years of school routine I know that I will be hungry again in time for the breaks, and I take proper, healthy food with me as a sort of second breakfast (I could now make a Lord of the Rings joke but I won't because I can't think of a good one). The point is, I know what I need to function on a regular day and I do that. So far, it's working really well for me.
But on irregular days - like on vacation, that routine is not only disrupted, but torn apart and burned. Sometimes you spend the vacation in a cabin or otherwise are responsible for your own food, in which case you can do whatever you want, which for my family usually means that we eat what we always have for breakfast. But, in our case most of the time, it might happen that you go out for food in the morning.
Generally, I like the idea of other people making my food in a way that is much better than I ever could. But with breakfast, that's different and depends a lot on the situation.
Take an American diner. A really nice, old fashioned, good one. I can enjoy pancakes and/or waffles for three days tops. Afterwards I miss my home routine so much I can barely look at a pancake without crying. But that's different for everyone, my father could survive on full American breakfast for eternity.
The worst "going out for breakfast" experience I had was in a coffee house in Vienna, where you could have a "normal" breakfast with cheese and jam and rolls and stuff, but it was so expensive that I felt guilty for eating and at the same time guilty for not eating, which means that I a) by far didn't eat enough to last till lunch and b) really didn't enjoy it.
Generally, ordering specific breakfast dishes doesn't work for me, and a lot of other people, because you are rather limited in choice and combination depending on what the restaurant decided to serve. If you want scrambled eggs but no bacon and a waffle and fresh fruit, ordering can feel more like puzzle work than anything else, and also it can turn out pretty expensive.
My favourite way of breakfast away from home is a buffet where you can just load your plate with whatever you like for a fixed price. I found that the best breakfast buffets can be found in business motels or hotels with conference facilities. Seriously. Warm dishes like eggs, bacon or sausages, different kinds of cheese, fresh fruit, yoghurt drinks or smoothies you don't have to pay extra for, and, my absolute favourite, miniature chocolate croissants. I've also been to a place where you could make your own pancakes.
I like breakfast buffets that much because they give you complete freedom on what to eat and how much. If you order eggs and bacon at a diner you might get too much egg and not enough bacon or the other way round or it might be too much altogether. At a buffet, you can not only choose the amount but also the combination. If you like bacon on your pancake, you can eat it and nobody will care. (Which doesn't mean that I like bacon on pancakes, but it's a good example.)
So, that's my (very chaotic) thoughts. There's not really a moral to this. Except for maybe eat what you want but that's my usual approach to food if you had to put it into one senctence. But, kids, that's a different story.
Until next time!
Love,
Jojo
So when you read or hear about eating healthy and living well and stuff you will inevitably hear about the importance of breakfast. The most important meal of the day, energy for the day, skipping breakfast will kill you, all that. Now, I'm not a nutritionist or any sort of authority on this topic, but like everyone on the Internet, I have opinions.
I didn't have breakfast today. I returned from a vacation at two o'clock in the morning and slept until eleven. Because I wasn't hungry then, I waited until two pm and had lunch. And I feel fine. The thing is, no matter how important it is to start the day by filling up with energy, eating when you're not really hungry or even forcing yourself to eat really can't be healthy.
During schooltime I get up pretty early, and I just eat something sweet and probably very bad for me because that early in the day I can't even think about nutritious, healthy food and the shock of being woken up by my alarm clock requires therapy. But because of by now eleven years of school routine I know that I will be hungry again in time for the breaks, and I take proper, healthy food with me as a sort of second breakfast (I could now make a Lord of the Rings joke but I won't because I can't think of a good one). The point is, I know what I need to function on a regular day and I do that. So far, it's working really well for me.
But on irregular days - like on vacation, that routine is not only disrupted, but torn apart and burned. Sometimes you spend the vacation in a cabin or otherwise are responsible for your own food, in which case you can do whatever you want, which for my family usually means that we eat what we always have for breakfast. But, in our case most of the time, it might happen that you go out for food in the morning.
Generally, I like the idea of other people making my food in a way that is much better than I ever could. But with breakfast, that's different and depends a lot on the situation.
Take an American diner. A really nice, old fashioned, good one. I can enjoy pancakes and/or waffles for three days tops. Afterwards I miss my home routine so much I can barely look at a pancake without crying. But that's different for everyone, my father could survive on full American breakfast for eternity.
The worst "going out for breakfast" experience I had was in a coffee house in Vienna, where you could have a "normal" breakfast with cheese and jam and rolls and stuff, but it was so expensive that I felt guilty for eating and at the same time guilty for not eating, which means that I a) by far didn't eat enough to last till lunch and b) really didn't enjoy it.
Generally, ordering specific breakfast dishes doesn't work for me, and a lot of other people, because you are rather limited in choice and combination depending on what the restaurant decided to serve. If you want scrambled eggs but no bacon and a waffle and fresh fruit, ordering can feel more like puzzle work than anything else, and also it can turn out pretty expensive.
My favourite way of breakfast away from home is a buffet where you can just load your plate with whatever you like for a fixed price. I found that the best breakfast buffets can be found in business motels or hotels with conference facilities. Seriously. Warm dishes like eggs, bacon or sausages, different kinds of cheese, fresh fruit, yoghurt drinks or smoothies you don't have to pay extra for, and, my absolute favourite, miniature chocolate croissants. I've also been to a place where you could make your own pancakes.
I like breakfast buffets that much because they give you complete freedom on what to eat and how much. If you order eggs and bacon at a diner you might get too much egg and not enough bacon or the other way round or it might be too much altogether. At a buffet, you can not only choose the amount but also the combination. If you like bacon on your pancake, you can eat it and nobody will care. (Which doesn't mean that I like bacon on pancakes, but it's a good example.)
So, that's my (very chaotic) thoughts. There's not really a moral to this. Except for maybe eat what you want but that's my usual approach to food if you had to put it into one senctence. But, kids, that's a different story.
Until next time!
Love,
Jojo
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
SCIENCE
Hello, my friends.
Let's talk about something different today.
You might have gathered from this blog that I'm more of an artsy person. I feel at home on the "soft" side of the science spectrum. This spectrum is basically maths on the hard side with only a very limited, precisely defined number of correct answers and for example literature on the soft side with a very broad, undefined variety of possibilities.
Fun fact: At school, sciences are usually my worst subjects. Seriously. You don't want to get me started on my chemistry lessons. So while I always valued science when other people did it, researching stuff and curing illnesses and so on, I never thought I could actually, really care for it myself.
Then I became a nerd. As in, recognised I had been one for all my life. Because that realisation had me spend my time more around nerd-related things, which ultimately got me in touch with more sciencey stuff as well. And it turns out, there's so much more to physics than they teach you at school.
I could, right now, by heart, tell you the name of all six kinds of quarks, when they were discovered, and what they do. And I sure as hell didn't learn that in school. Things like that song that you randomly find on the Internet are so easy to access and so fun to use.
The Internet taught me that science, be it biology, chemistry or physics, can be incredibly interesting and even beautiful. Have you seen some of those pictures of galaxies? THAT is perfection. There are people out there who will talk for four minutes on a YouTube video and have you marvel at the extreme serendipity that is your existence. Seriously. It's awesome.
But even with all that, I never would have thought that I could be interested in taxidermy. Of all things, I am glued to my computer screen watching a twenty-something young woman with a pink flower in her blond ponytail cut up, skin and dissect a dead wolf. You have no idea how terribly fascinating (yet kind of gross) that is.
I'm talking about Emily Graslie, former art student who discovered her true passion by sort of accidentally walking into her university's zoological museum. She did a lot of volunteer work there and, after being featured in one of Hank Green's (www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers) videos, she was able to start her own YouTube show called The Brain Scoop where she shows her work in the collection or talks about related subjects like domestication.
While I'm not exactly planning on pursuing a career in taxidermy, I find Emily's videos extremely interesting. She has a very bubbly personality and was very comfortable in front of the camera from the first moment. Besides showing her viewers how a wolf looks from the inside, she also has first-hand experience on how the US government (and I'm pretty sure they aren't the only ones) cuts more and more money from the science and education budget, pretty much dooming small collections like the ones Emily presented.
So I guess what I want to say is, I care about science even though I'm not a science person, and I think not enough people do. So spread the word. Or something.
Love,
Jojo
Let's talk about something different today.
You might have gathered from this blog that I'm more of an artsy person. I feel at home on the "soft" side of the science spectrum. This spectrum is basically maths on the hard side with only a very limited, precisely defined number of correct answers and for example literature on the soft side with a very broad, undefined variety of possibilities.
Fun fact: At school, sciences are usually my worst subjects. Seriously. You don't want to get me started on my chemistry lessons. So while I always valued science when other people did it, researching stuff and curing illnesses and so on, I never thought I could actually, really care for it myself.
Then I became a nerd. As in, recognised I had been one for all my life. Because that realisation had me spend my time more around nerd-related things, which ultimately got me in touch with more sciencey stuff as well. And it turns out, there's so much more to physics than they teach you at school.
I could, right now, by heart, tell you the name of all six kinds of quarks, when they were discovered, and what they do. And I sure as hell didn't learn that in school. Things like that song that you randomly find on the Internet are so easy to access and so fun to use.
The Internet taught me that science, be it biology, chemistry or physics, can be incredibly interesting and even beautiful. Have you seen some of those pictures of galaxies? THAT is perfection. There are people out there who will talk for four minutes on a YouTube video and have you marvel at the extreme serendipity that is your existence. Seriously. It's awesome.
But even with all that, I never would have thought that I could be interested in taxidermy. Of all things, I am glued to my computer screen watching a twenty-something young woman with a pink flower in her blond ponytail cut up, skin and dissect a dead wolf. You have no idea how terribly fascinating (yet kind of gross) that is.
I'm talking about Emily Graslie, former art student who discovered her true passion by sort of accidentally walking into her university's zoological museum. She did a lot of volunteer work there and, after being featured in one of Hank Green's (www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers) videos, she was able to start her own YouTube show called The Brain Scoop where she shows her work in the collection or talks about related subjects like domestication.
While I'm not exactly planning on pursuing a career in taxidermy, I find Emily's videos extremely interesting. She has a very bubbly personality and was very comfortable in front of the camera from the first moment. Besides showing her viewers how a wolf looks from the inside, she also has first-hand experience on how the US government (and I'm pretty sure they aren't the only ones) cuts more and more money from the science and education budget, pretty much dooming small collections like the ones Emily presented.
So I guess what I want to say is, I care about science even though I'm not a science person, and I think not enough people do. So spread the word. Or something.
Love,
Jojo
Sunday, August 11, 2013
DANCING
From a very young age
I was longing to dance
Ballett my mother forbade
And in first grade I knew nothing else
I did martial arts instead
And, in truth, no regrets
All during childhood I was jumping around
Trying to copy
The beautiful moves
I had seen dancers perform
To no surprise, I failed
Miserably, and I sometimes stopped trying
I do HipHop now, and enjoy it
But it brings sweat, not beauty
The hours of ballroom dancing
Have passed beyond count
And yet still I lack
That timeless elegance
I have always dreamed of
Saturday, August 10, 2013
THE BEAUTY OF A MOMENT
I just sat outside for ten minutes.
There's a row of houses behind our back garden, and exactly behind ours, there's an empty property with nothing but grass and a stack of firewood on it. Behind that, there's fields, an old oak tree and the forest in the distance.
The sun sets exactly there.
My brother and I ordered pizza tonight and I ate in front of the TV rewatching an old episode of Doctor Who. While I brought my dirty dishes into the kitchen, I noticed the sunshine outside. I tidied up the living room and decided to go outside.
The sun stood pretty low already, just so reaching the patio. It had been cloudy all day so the sunlight looked incredibly bright and golden on the lawn and the flowers. The wind was rustling the leaves and the countless birds living in our garden were singing their evening songs. It was comfortably warm with a hint of chill.
I sat on the sunbed and closed my eyes. There was autumn in the air, easy to feel. The way the light hit the leaves made them look golden.
When I look outside my window now, I can see the tree moving in the wind, the leaves still coloured by the setting sun. It's not late enough for the sky to be pink yet but it's definitely changing colour.
Those ten minutes I sat out there in the garden were perfect. It was one of those moments you can't describe. I wanted to photograph it but how could you capture the sound of the wind and the late summer air kissing your skin on a photograph?
While sitting outside I thought about how moments can be perfect and then the telephone rings or you remember you didn't turn off the TV yet and reality comes rushing back in. It's sort of depressing but perfect moments are too, well, perfect to ignore them. In a perfect moment, you feel at ease. Comfortable. Safe.
I've experienced a few of those moments before.
Sitting under a sunshade by the pool in a hotel on Gran Canaria with my family reading The Lord of the Rings.
On top of a ferris wheel with my two best friends in the whole world taking pictures.
Those are the moments that make you want to be the best person you can possibly be, do the best you possibly can, make the most out of your life. Those are the moments that feel slightly unreal but at the same time you feel so incredibly alive.
Those are the moments that make you recognise how beautiful life can be.
There's a row of houses behind our back garden, and exactly behind ours, there's an empty property with nothing but grass and a stack of firewood on it. Behind that, there's fields, an old oak tree and the forest in the distance.
The sun sets exactly there.
My brother and I ordered pizza tonight and I ate in front of the TV rewatching an old episode of Doctor Who. While I brought my dirty dishes into the kitchen, I noticed the sunshine outside. I tidied up the living room and decided to go outside.
The sun stood pretty low already, just so reaching the patio. It had been cloudy all day so the sunlight looked incredibly bright and golden on the lawn and the flowers. The wind was rustling the leaves and the countless birds living in our garden were singing their evening songs. It was comfortably warm with a hint of chill.
I sat on the sunbed and closed my eyes. There was autumn in the air, easy to feel. The way the light hit the leaves made them look golden.
When I look outside my window now, I can see the tree moving in the wind, the leaves still coloured by the setting sun. It's not late enough for the sky to be pink yet but it's definitely changing colour.
Those ten minutes I sat out there in the garden were perfect. It was one of those moments you can't describe. I wanted to photograph it but how could you capture the sound of the wind and the late summer air kissing your skin on a photograph?
While sitting outside I thought about how moments can be perfect and then the telephone rings or you remember you didn't turn off the TV yet and reality comes rushing back in. It's sort of depressing but perfect moments are too, well, perfect to ignore them. In a perfect moment, you feel at ease. Comfortable. Safe.
I've experienced a few of those moments before.
Sitting under a sunshade by the pool in a hotel on Gran Canaria with my family reading The Lord of the Rings.
On top of a ferris wheel with my two best friends in the whole world taking pictures.
Those are the moments that make you want to be the best person you can possibly be, do the best you possibly can, make the most out of your life. Those are the moments that feel slightly unreal but at the same time you feel so incredibly alive.
Those are the moments that make you recognise how beautiful life can be.
Friday, August 9, 2013
VIENNA
Hello!
I'm on school holiday at the moment (and have been for three weeks) and because my family can't go on a big holiday together like we usually do my mum and I have been on two short trips with my grandparents, first on my mum's side last week to Vienna, then with my father's mother this week to Hamburg. I'll do posts on both trips but the Hamburg pictures aren't on the computer yet so that'll have to wait a bit...
In short: Vienna is a beautiful city. We stayed in a very small hotel downtown so we could reach basically everything by foot, which was kind of nice. Even the main shopping street with all the more or less expensive boutiques and tourist shops is beautiful because all the houses have matching, historic facades. The guide in the synagogue we visited actually told us that all new-built houses had to be made to match the rest of the city!
Anyway, picture time!
In short: Vienna is a beautiful city. We stayed in a very small hotel downtown so we could reach basically everything by foot, which was kind of nice. Even the main shopping street with all the more or less expensive boutiques and tourist shops is beautiful because all the houses have matching, historic facades. The guide in the synagogue we visited actually told us that all new-built houses had to be made to match the rest of the city!
Anyway, picture time!
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| The ferris wheel in the Prater. This thing is about a hundred years old and it still works! |
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| One of the famous, beautiful Lippizzaner horses! |
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| This is the Holocaust memorial. It depicts a library, each book symbolising the life of one of the Austrian victims. |
See you soon!
Love, Jojo
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