OMG, ick kann Deutsch sprechen!

Ja, jetz kann ich Deutsch viiiiieeeeel besser sprechen als früher. Echt! Danke BSI!

Hai=shark

Aber keine sorge, schreibe ich leider am Englisch :).

The Villagers & Here we go magic in Berlin

Checking out new indie bands became my new summer sport (apart from repairing my bike). This time I bought tickets for Here we go Magic, indie band from New York. It is fair to say the band is not inventing new kind of music, nevertheless it is performing a crossover indie extremely well. Untamed raw guitare sounds are sometimes very soft and gentle and the other times hardcore, almost old school rock like. So yes, definitely 12 EUR well spent.

But this time something quite strage happened. It was not the main band that impressed me so much, but their support act - The Villagers. Actually it was only the frontmen Conor J. O'Brien performing but OMG, what a voice! Clear, strong and melanholic in that indie kinda way, topped up with quality lyrics that left me speachless. Apparently he described his lyrics as:

"transcendental darkness and the weirdness...Dark imagery or feelings alongside really mundane domestic everyday things".

Yes, I bought the CD and yes, will definitely go and see the next show. I think the music did for me what John Mayer did for some of my female friends. However, I do think Conor O'Brien is entirely different story than John Mayer and probably less of a cunt too :)

About Slovenian national sports

This is not about football. The closest I got to World cup is listening to honking horns and drunken yelling from the streets while getting a serious flag overdose.

No, it's about the sports that Slovenians are learning and practising from the very early age: complaining and criticizing. Yup, that's right. We are the world champions in nagging, bitching, exaggerating, searching for loopholes and mistakes and many other similar disciplines. So many olympic medals just waiting to happen.

Have a good news? Don't worry, we can turn it into a bad one in no time. And smash any ideals or hope you might have had while we're at it. See a nice opportunity? No problem - in a blink of an eye it will become a scandal, maybe even an international conflict. Nothing interesting to say? Just criticize the first object/person/news/thing you see. It'll make you feel much better and more important.

If you want to compete with us, there's important lesson you have to learn. Remember that there are no challenges. There are only obstacles that prevent you from actually doing something.

Summer Lunch

I love experimenting with food, especially if the outcomes are delicious. Of course sometimes experienting also means growing mold or making dishes of weird colors, but amost never intentionally. Fortunately this experiment ended in a delicious risotto and refreshing salad. To make it you'll need:

For risotto:

• brown rice
• 1/2 onion
• 1-2 garlic cloves
• 1 medium size zucchini
• 5-7 asparagus
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• yellow curry
• thyme
• rosemary 

For salad:

• lettuce
• mozzarella
• fetta cheese
• 1 green pepper
• 2 tomatoes

For salad dressing:

• olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• honey
• salt
• pepper
• yellow curry
• pinch of thyme

Experimenting starts with heating olive oil in the saucepan and adding chopped onion and garlic with a pinch of salt. Add rice and spices, after few minutes add water, cover and cook on low/medium hear for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime cut zucchini and prepaire asparagus - peel off the hard skin, cut off the ends and cut them into smaller pieces. After the rice is half way done, add chopped veggies and more water. Leave for another 15 - 20 minutes, untill the veggies are cooked, add more water if neccessary.

Salad is pretty easy, just some washing, chopping and putting things together. Now I know the salad dressing sounds a bit exotic and weird but it's actually really tasty. Ever since my ex flatmate showed me that salad dressing don't have to be  prepaired only with oil, vinegar, garlic and onion, I've really started to enjoy them much more.

Bon apetit!

Intimacy

Some statistics imply that most of people is scared of public speaking and death. It's probably not far from the truth, however I do believe what really scares us most is intimacy. Fear of opening up to another person, uncovering the weaknesses and showing who we really are.  Fear of not being accepted by others is nothing unusual since many are actually struggling with accepting themselves.

Once we put down our strong fences, built to protect us from pain, dissapointment and ourselves, we are left with naked vunerability and mixed emotions. How long does it take before we are willing to share it, knowing that there is no guarantee or protection from getting hurt? How careful can one be when opening up to people? How fast or slow should you do it? Is there the right way?

I don't know. But sometimes it is better not to ask too many questions. It's possible to get hurt, shattered or torn apart. Just as it is possible to feel something trully strong and special, even if only for short time. Going through life wihtout giving other people a chance to know who we are and how we feel is quite comfortable way. Probably not a very happy one. I'm not willing to give it a try. I want to feel.

Creepy freshness

There's something that needs to be said about modern automatic air fresheners with a sensor. They creep me out.

Sure it may sound like an excellent idea. But when you enter bathroom still in the morning braindead mood, the last thing you want is having some device spraying deodorant on you while making strange noise.

Trust me, when you hear a weird squishy noise at 4 a.m. air freshener is definitely not the first thing that comes to your mind. It's more like wondering what kinda freaking animal/alien has found its new home in the safe environment of our cosmetic products.

After few seconds of twilight zone feeling you realise it's just the falic device with it's evil blinking green eye. Lord of the Rings meets Cyclop.

Seriously scarry shit.

Yes, I am a feminist!

This statement is usually accompanied by a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, awkward moments or rolling eyes, followed by the question: But why?

Naturally most of the people assume that being a feminist means hating men, not shaving legs or exercising militant stereotypes where furious women point fingers at you and scream slogans about opression, domination and payback time. Well no.

For me being a feminist means smashing gender stereotypes and fighting inequality. Being a woman or man doesn't mean you need to fit into the uncomfortable and socially prescribed role if you don't want to. But many do because of the social pressure.

It's not about all women of the world having a sucessful career nor about all men becoming caring housewifes. It's simply about recognising that "women" and "men" are not unique categories. Not all women want to have a family and not all men want to be providers. And personally I don't see a problem with that.

Being a feminist means noticing the existing power relations and the structure behind them. Equal rights are not just about the laws, but also about all the social structures that affect us and our surroundings, constituting invisible "natural" order which is in fact as artificial as it can get.

So yes I am a feminist. And I think it's about time to claim feminism back. It is not and shouldn't be a fight of women for their rights. It is a fight of the society for the gender equality. Globally.

Confessions of internet user

As internet user there are some things I don't expect to happen when I visit a website. And by "don't expect to happen" I really mean "it annoys the hell outta me". For example :

• the music that starts playing when I visit a website,
• the music that starts playing everytime I refresh the page, even if I turned it off the first time,
• the main navigation dissapears every time I visit any of the webpages,
• pop up ads (possibly in flash with loud music) appear out of nowhere and follow my cursor,
• special characters change in bizzare unreadable signs thus making the text completely impossible to consume,
• having to read long text with few or no paragraphs,
• having to read somebody's mindflow for 10 minutes before I get to actual information,
• having to look for contact info for more than 10 seconds,
• having to deal with the search field or e-form that doesn't work,
• discovering the dead pages,
• "news" that was refreshed a year ago.

Having a website is overrated. Unless you can take care for it properly, don't embarrass yourself by having a lousy one. This might also help.

So, how is your German?

This is a sentence I hear quite often (apart from two most annoying common ones: what are you doing in Berlin and why). My usual answer is: besser.

Eventhough I am still planing to take an intensive course, I learned a lot just by listening and trying to speak. I must say the latter is much easier after a beer or three. Of course I make lots of gramatical mistakes with die, der, das and others, but it doesn't really matter cause they don't pronounce half of the letters anyway.

I love Berlin slang. It's somewhat soft, melodic and sometimes also funny. E.g.

Bin ick kino? = Why are you staring at me?

Ick mach dich Krankenhaus = I will beat you up. (funny only cause it means literally I will make you a hospital)

With everything else I improvise. Like today at the hairdressers. She can't speak English so I showed her a picture. Actually I showed two pictures of completely different haircuts and said: Etwas wie so oder so.

She went on on explaining on what would be good and what she's gonna do. Every now and then she would ask me something. I understood most of the things and when I didn't I just answered with "Ja".

The result is a nice haircut for only 7 eur. So yes, my German is improving :)

Local Natives

Yesterday's concert of Southern Californian indie band Local Natives was indeed one of the music highlights. Only a week after the German release of their debut album Gorilla Minor they peformed in Berlin's rather small but nice alter place called Bang Bang Club. And let me tell you, oooh, and aaah doesn't even begin to describe it.

Expectations were high and were partially satisfied by an excellent rock pre group who's name I didn't manage to catch. Needless to say the club was packed with excited people and so was the stage.

Local Natives were not performing at all, it seems as they were completely melted with their music, enjoying every minute of it, and so did we. They mastered their instruments as well as the genre. Positive surprise and a band that is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Unfortunatelly I didn't make any photos as I found concert much more enjoyable that way, but here is a taste of their live performance. Very likable!