Tag Archives: life

Improvement

When I looked through some old stuff today I discovered something incredible: My English used to be sooo bad only a few years ago … well there would still be worse people, but I was quite shocked when I read some of my old essays for my English classes during Vocational High School …
And I even still have an old story of mine already typed from that time to prove this. And I have to admit that I used to be „proud“ of what I’ve written, but now I just am laughing at it the all the way through … it’s sooo bad … XD

So. if you dare to find out, where I started with my story-writing skills in about 2008, just read on. (Well, we had four pictures and then to write a story according to what they portrayed, so we did not have much space for imagination.)

On a side note: I think it still has all the spelling errors in it as well … or I added typing errors … probably both…
If you are not brave enough, just scroll down to my continued rant below it 😉

Monopoly

It’s a friendly, peaceful day. The sky is blue, only some clouds are hanging around in the sky. Ignorant people do their egoistic things in a world full of hate.
A woman is walking out of the door of a bank. She’s sad. She lost her job and won’t get any more credits. She isn’t noticing any cars on the street. A moment earlier an other woman came out of this bank. She’s self-confident and proud and she’s in a snit! A banker wasn’t friendly to her. The third woman is gazing at the bank and surveying the situation. May she’s planing something. In front of her there is a man. He seems to be very sad and he’s walking very slowly. His eyes are looking at the bank with every step he’s making. Looking, looking away, looking, looking away, etc. The second man is walking in the opposite direction as the other guy is doing. This man is looking at the starring girl. She’s nodding. The man is answering with a nod. Something strange is going on here.
All of these people had been disappearing in a few seconds, so that the streets are empty now. A second car is arriving. Three guys are getting out of it. They are wearing masks, even you can describe it as only some black ties in front of their mouths. For the last time they’re looking over the street. There’s a little discussion between them, if it’s the right moment, but this isn’t of much interest. Now they are going into the bank.

The people in the bank aren’t noticing those strange guys. Suddenly they are realizing, that this is a bank robbery, because one of the guys was making a shot in the air. After this everyone is shocked for a while. The bank robbers are going straight through the masses to the lady behind the window. The boss of the robbers is just saying: “Give the money!” As self-confident as it’s possible for her in such a situation she’s answering: “We only have some banknotes here! The rest is in the safe deposit!” “Then open it!”, the robber is becoming nervous. “I don’t know the combination and I’m unable to find out what it is!”, she is answering relaxed. “Why aren’t you able?!”, the man is screaming now. In this moment another woman is sinking on the floor. Someone of the witnesses is screaming: “Help her!” One of the guys is a friendly one, but also a very naive. He is going to help her. Suddenly she’s starring straight into his eyes, taking his gun and kicking his ass, so that he is falling on the floor. In the same moment the lady behind the window is hitting the distracted guys in front of her.

So these to tough girls adjusted the bank robbers and got an award by the police for their courage. The bank robbers went straight to prison, without getting any money. And if they didn’t get acquitted, so they even sit imprisoned!

© As horrible as the story might be: It still is my intellectual property and therefore is only allowed to be used with my permission.

Now as you might have read this horrid peace of written work, you might understand why I wanted to improve my skills. And seeing as I myself can tell that the stuff above is bad, makes me believe that I actually have improved over the last few years.

I would even dare to say greatly improved.

But as improvement has it, it only comes with time and practice and I can say that I practiced quite a bit. Classes during A-Level did little, though I had to write even more than before, but my classes during studying indeed did their part. While I only had German native speakers teaching me foreign languages before, I now had English native speakers as teachers. Beside that, I also had started reading Manga in English and watching Anime with English subtitles and so on. I didn’t really sat down and studied that much, I just learned it while using it. For me, it’s far easier that way.

By now I watch series and movies in English, read stuff and write all this stuff here on this page (posts and stories) and on fanfiction.net, translate the stuff for our posts on dfppentertainment.wordpress.com and even try to improve my speaking skills by recording my Fanfics – though that’s a work in a really slow progress. And if you still not believe that I have improved, just look through this blog and read some more. For example my dwarve-story The Quest for Ore, to have a comparison to how I write stories these days. 😉

But don’t think my writing skills in German were much better in the beginning … no, they clearly weren’t, but they were even funnier. There is a story of mine from second or third grade about a horse that befriends a kangorooh (kangaroo) from the far away continent Australia, where everyone speaks backwards. Because Australia is on the other side/half of the Earth, you know? 😀 Oh, the logic of an eight year old kid … XD

Anyway, I’d like to improve my skills even further, especially my speaking skills, and not forget this incredible language – as I mostly did with Russian, which I would like to re-learn. But I can’t say, if I actually be able to do either of that.

I’m still going to try.

Who knows, maybe in a couple of years I’m looking back at this and think the exact same thing I did, when looking through my old school stuff. 😀

PoiSonPaiNter

Oh, by the way: The last lines, the so-called „punchline“ of the story was supposed to be the translation of the Monopoly go-to-jail-card, thus explaining the title. 😉

Milestones

Every large enough project needs to be split into several phases: Each phase ending with a milestone. A kind of sign post that tells you: This is done, let’s move on.
And as life itself is one of the largest projects there are it does have some as well. As it ranges from childhood, over the teenage years, up until adulthood and beyond.
When you are young you don’t really care about your milestones. You just care about things children do, like playing, your favourite food/toys, etc.. But your parents care. They celebrate every little thing you do. Your first steps, your first words, the first birthdays and so on.
The first big milestones you have as child is entering/leaving nursery school, kindergarten (In some places in Germany you have two parts of the nursery school: “Kinderkrippe” and “Kindergarten” that’s why I split it) and entering elementary school.
From then on out the steps become bigger.
When it only took weeks, months or a few years to accomplish them before, it now takes three to six years and more.
Explaining the German school system is tricky. Especially as a lot has changed since I left it. But when I went through it I passed three milestones: Finishing Elementary School (“Grundschule”), Secondary School (“Realschule”) and Grammar School/ (Vocational) High School (“(Fach)Gymnasium”).
Those years weren’t really what a kid/teenager would have liked to experience, but that kind of made me who I am: A pessimistic, weird loner. 😉
An always interesting thought process is that when you are still in the system you want to get out of it. But when you have actually left it, you understand that those years were way easier than anything life throws at you when you’re done with school. And you realize all these adults that told you “One day you will miss school!” were right. Well, I don’t really “miss school” I just miss the spare time I had thanks to the short schedules and stuff. You could do so much more in one day…
Since I started studying in a dual-mode course of study in 2009 spare time was (occasionally) there, but so was stress. Studying in this system means you don’t have semester breaks. Because if you do, you have to work. Work for the company that gives you your paycheck and also pays for your education. That leaves you with 24 to 30 vacation days a year to recuperate. Direct studies aren’t that much different to this by now, but I still think it is different though. As you have a company that wishes to see good – if not the best – results of you. Both in studies and at work.
And with a certain amount of stress neither is really achievable – at least not without paying a high price for it. And I don’t mean bribing the lecturers. 😀
Throughout those years I had to re-experience things that I hoped would have gotten better as the people would be more mature. But I was soon proven wrong. People prefer uniformity and despise everything that is different. It had looked well in the first semester, but it then went downhill.
I had a pretty low phase in my fourth semester, where I didn’t want to continue and in the end failed 4 of the 6 exams that term. Being used to school standards with somewhat easy and divided possibilities to gain your final mark this feels like a stab in the chest every time you see the red mark in the overview.
Failure was my steady companion throughout this time.
I needed a second try in quite a bunch of exams unfortunately.
But I think most of it was because of my mental state and the little time we had for learning and during the exams. Five exams in one week is not really the nicest thing to push onto a student.
I’m not proud of my failings nor the marks I got in the end, but I managed to pass every last one of them.
It is what you gain from failing that forms your character. You can rise from your ashes and manage to do it the next time or just stop trying and let the whole thing drag you down even further.
Even though I have the tendency to drag myself down for a while after a failure at some point I start doing what has to be done regardless of that. As I am too stubborn and proud to just give up.
And I wanted to at several points.
But failure wasn’t my only company.
There also were people that stayed with me every now and again.
I am horrible with making friends and staying friends with people I meet and like. It takes time for me to actually trust people and see/refer to them as “friends”.
They’re mostly pals, fellow students, colleagues and whichever other word you can use for describing a non-friend.
But that’s just how complicated a person I am. 😉
And regardless of how I refer to them, those that are dear and important to me know that they are, at least I hope they do.
But what do people have to do with milestones?
People help us accomplish our milestones. They show us a different path or put obstacles in our way, make us re-think our strategies or assist us in overcoming our troubles and most importantly give us new strength to carry on.
As much as I despise the treatment I had to ensure throughout the years.
There were always a few people that stuck with me.
That I could talk to for hours and not get the slightest bit bored or annoyed.
People that I really enjoy/ed spending time with.
As I said, I am not that good at keeping friends, given my pessimistic nature, but I try.
So I am grateful for all the people that crossed my path and walked with me for a while.
I don’t know how often I will be able to meet some of them again and not lose track of them. As I kind of did with so many other people.
But those few I am currently thinking of helped me through the last semesters (and exams).
They talked some sense into me when I was down or unrealistic or just provided entertainment, great conversations and company. They helped me to strive for better marks again, so that I managed to even get some really good ones in some of the last exams.
And given a little more time I even might be able to achieve what they already managed to do recently – my next milestone:
Obtaining my Bachelor’s degree.
One day I will have it as well!
Without the fancy robe and the official ceremony, but I will have it! 😀
And all this above is the reason I should not write blog posts when I’m feeling down….Sounds far too cheesy… 😀
PoiSonPaiNter