Chrimbosity.

Lumière ...

I don't want the last evidence of me on this blog to be a picture of a foggy railway platform, so for the case that I die very soon, I've unearthed some pictures of sunnier days. They seem almost impossibly far away right now, even if they're only just over a month old. Also the drastic contrasts of darkness and light in those photos are a little comforting in the face of my currently continuous gloominess: There's absolutely no light that comes without darkness.
They're unpopulated.
But old stone is comforting too.

Tonight we fly
Over the houses the streets and the trees
Over the dogs down below
They'll bark at our shadows
As we float by on the breeze

November, December, start counting ...

It's raining on this first of December. A whimsical, drab drizzle in front of an almost-white sky. It may be a cruel joke - the kind of humourless joke that only weather gods come up with - on behalf of the people who are actually waiting for and looking forward to real winter, because it is associated, and signifies some other eagerly awaited event - or should I reverse this: the advent of some dearly loved and much needed person or other!

This year I, blasphemically, have reason to revisit the wonderful anticipation of a childhood advent, complete with countdowns and calenders, indulging with relish in my own childishness. I really can't wait for Christmas time this year! I think it's going to be a good one, for a change, as compared to the last few years which were decidedly meh. And in fact, I can actually stop counting and start rejoicing a few days before the 24th - see countdown in upper right corner. Oh sigh, the magical thing that is long distance relationships!

Happy Thanksgiving!

(g m g)

Sometimes I do miss the party element in my life.
It's not just that the dust has settled around me ... some of it has already evolved into higher life forms.

Voilà!

<3: That, and foxes.

Lists of loves are good therapy.

Mimikry?

I am proud to announce officially that in the course of the last month I have aquired a new source for bad conscience.

It came complementary with the (mild, rudimentary) political awareness that I, obviously prompted by the peer pressure or chain reaction of the student protests here in Austria, exchanged for my long-time escapist apathy and self-inflicted myopia.

I am, obviously, unarguably, behind this cause, (and many others) and will give anybody who asks cogent arguments why. But that is as far as it goes.
Political commitment, out of my own initiative, is extremely hard to practice and all my noble intentions fall short of being transformed into reality. And whereas up to now, I have usually shrugged this off with reference to my personality and interests, it's now really beginning to bother me. Certainly another consequence of the current "political atmosphere", which is close enough to give me ideas, but apparently not close enough to suck me in.

I have tried blaming my lack of connection, my insular-isolated-introvert situation, and I have tried blaming my other obligations and my more-than-brimful time table - but all in all these are all empty arguments that miss the quintessential point, which is that I am, in that respect, as in many others, pretty much inept. Boldly walking up to people to tell them what I think is right and why they are wrong is definitely NOT my strong point. And neither is boldly walking up to people to tell them that I think what they are doing is right and that I would like to support them. Not even that! It is incredibly pathetic.

My contribution to the student protests therefore is: explaining my point to various members of my family and wearing a badge.

Colour me shamefaced.
None of my cells are revolutionary.

Passion Pit

I like Passion Pit very, very much.

Have you seen me crying
Tears like diamonds?
Down and down they slide
Faster and faster like the speed of love

Brown as Autumn ...

Today, I am dressed like this:

The occasion? Going to the post office and to new girl band rehearsal. Possibly a case of slight over-dressing, but I think of it as ars-gratia-artis.

Also, I just got this book in the mail:



Looks kind of garish, doesn't it? ENGROSSING! COMPELLING! TITANIC!
It's a re-telling of the myth of Prometheus, albeit quite far removed from the original (being a sort of Dan Brown story?), and I'm not quite sure how much I will like having to include this in my diploma thesis - but maybe I should read it first, before I complain.

These days ...

Please don't confront me with my failures. I had not forgotten them.

Wij sin twee!

Having a very pink afternoon tea at the upstairs salon de thé of a pictavian Pâtissier.

Living the clichée, ftw!

Poitiers

I'm back from my trip to France to visit Max. These 10 days have been full of autumnal ambulations through parks and medieval alleys, exceedingly lovely weather, exceedingly crap weather, visits to Romanesque churches and small museums, alternatives-to-the-internet©, fixing shower drains, trips to the sea-side, improvised home-cooking with delicious outcomes, getting drenched in the rain after missing the night bus, snuggling up in a tiny bed and breakfasts for two at eleven thirty.

So all in all ... y/y/y! <3

That person.

Schnitzel according to Max. (I would take peas instead of the apple puree) We had to make the breadcrumbs ourselves, because apparently they don't sell readymade bread-crumbs for breading in France.

Église Saint-Hilaire: the hilarious church

Poitiers is predominantly made up of streets like that.

Some photographic evidence of our borderline-retardedness, for good measure.

Whereas shots of our feet are much safer and generally preferable!

The French do strange things to their trees.

<3

Also, as you can see, I am so very pathetic that I even have a new countdown already. Dog love ftw!

Unibrennt? O rly?

Yesterday, Thursday 22rd of October, following a demonstration for free education (Freie Bildung) in the Sigmund-Freud-Park outside the main building of the University of Vienna a crowd of students spontaneously occupied the university's main lecture hall Audimax, declaring that they would remain to squat there, until a catalogue of hastily compiled claims was acknowledged by government authorities.
So finally, the less than optimal conditions at Austrian universities have led to desperate measures - although desparation may not be the first word that comes to mind upon viewing certain photos that document a very enthused crowd protesting-cum-partying (partesting? protying?) at the auditorium maximum.
The general mood can be summed up by an excited buzz that "finally something is happening", and although police turn up later in the afternoon, the university decides not to have the building vacated. The squatters stay over night.
The morning of Unibrennt Day 2 sees attempts at organising several plenum debates in order to clarify certain disputable points in the catalogues of claims - which is easier said than done. That, at least, is the impression I gained from the 2 hours I spent there this morning. Continuous nuissance is caused by on-going fruitless discussions about various banalities or unresolvable questions of principle, and productive decision-making is complicated by clashing agendae and other all-to-familiar causes of frustration. Actually, a lot of what was wrong with what was going on during the Audimax debates is exactly what's also awry in politics on a bigger scale in this country.
Fuelled by a lot of pent up anger on the one hand, and the euphoria caused by this sudden sensation of movement and the instant gratification of New Media/Web 2.0 coverage, the protests continued. Hopes to have a live debate with minister of science Johannes Hahn were sadly disappointed, but the plenum debates in the afternoon again attracted a large crowd.

(Photos taken from polilog's flickr.)


As of the moment, it looks like the squatting will continue throughout the night, but as I hear from friends on site, as well as on twitter, the whole project is already beginning to appear somewhat gridlocked.
Here's hope that it will be possible to remain steadfast and not break apart due to internal differences. Here's hope that tomorrow morning there will still be a crowd to join (as much as I would like to be there now, I had about 4 hours of sleep last night, and am already feeling quite ill, which is not the state I would opt to be in for my trip to France ... 3 days!). As for my own position on the whole thing, I actually concur with a lot of the criticism that has been voiced, like the claims being unrealistic and utopic, the credibility and seriousity of the initiative being impaired by immature acts of vandalism and by misinterpretations of it as an occasion for anarchic partying. The way I have expressed this is, though certainly exaggerated, unfortunately exactly the way in which it is propagated by critics and haters, and how it will be perceived by the public: a bunch of lazy, boozed-up students preposterously demanding an even easier life.
And to be honest, watching the debates this morning I had a really hard time clinging on to any feelings of solidarity. But at the same time, I do think that it is of utmost importance to voice complaints, and to make ourselves heard, and not demurely submit to whichever impossible conditions we are expected to work under. Maybe the whole initiative is doomed to fail, and was so from the beginning - recent news certainly do not bode well - but I'd hate to see the protesters cave in and sheepishly admit that it was wrong to even say anything. I'd like at least to see them (/us ... well, them, I won't be around to see the end of it) go down fighting, or ideally, keep a little victory for themselves.
This is as idealistic and utopic a mood as I can generate within myself, and it's utterly fleeting. But I'm forcing myself to root for this cause - all else would feel like a very personal defeat.

N.V.

What is this tendency to resent every activity you cannot do though you might want to, and every thing or person that you cannot possess though you might want to?


N.V.

My most unloveable character trait.





It just won't do, will it?

Atmospheric Phenomena

Today.

<3

(Monsieur le Roi!)

Words!!11!!1



I less-than-three you, albeit from afar.


/le!sop

Back into Pop!

After my September exile in the land of Haydn symphonies I always find it a bit difficulty to find my way back into my usual popular-music-listening habits.
But I stumbled across this on the airwaves on my way back from a short hit-and-run-trip into Vienna, and it screams "Pop!" (and also "We're not very original in our naming but PROBABLY ARE SO IN A POST-MODERN IRONIC WAY, HAHA!")



Slightly generic, ephemeral, teenage, unintellectual and not at all new. But ever so feel-good! Alright!

I've got nothing new to tell you.
For no real reason, I'm in a bit of a gloomy mood these days, and am largely holding myself over water with the help of reading and looking at beautiful pictures. I want to live in a sinister room full of books, like so:


(stolen from tumblr)


Good things will come of the start of the winter term next week, taking up permanent residence in Vienna again, painting one of my walls blue and slowly but surely working on the decrease of days between the now and the trip to France. I am a little pathetic, but there you go.

Forest!

A picture of me taken in the woodland twilight (strictly no sparkling!) of last Sunday's afternoon walk with Lisa:

We had planned to go looking for mushrooms, but all we found was moss, acorns and a few very toxic-looking fungi, which we took with us for scientific examination. We decided that they were probably not good for eating, and instead had delicious plum cake and tea.
Somehow Sundays seem more valuable and precious when you've spent the whole week under the yoke of strictly organised working hours. At university, you occasionally forget what weekend means for most of the rest of the population. Quite interesting!

And here a couple of photos of the sheep we met on our way into the woods. I like sheep. We weren't sure if the colourful smaller animal wasn't maybe a shoat (geep?). Apparently some people doubt that such a thing can even exist, but I am quite positive it does. I love hybrids!

Pictures of where I work ... White Staircase

I figured it was about time that I posted some impressions of the place where I'm currently working, in other words, the place that is to blame for the utter lack of posts that has recently dominated this blog.

It's the third September that I spend working at the Esterházy palace in Eisenstadt, as a tour guide, tourist-information-cum-gift-shop employee and doer of everything that needs to be done. The place is so familiar now that I hardly see its beauty any more, but beauty is to be found there, even - or should I say especially - in those places that you don't see glaring down from every other postcard in the shop.

The pictures that I want to post today were taken in the White Staircase, situated in the north-east corner of the palace, the part that faces the park and most noticably bears the traces of the neo-classical renovation and extension that was begun in the early 19th century. Around this time, people had grown tired of the garish colours and affected flourishes of the baroque style, and longed for plain shapes and pure colours - or, in the case of the White Staircase, for a composition of delicate shades of white.

Even stripped of its original function and context - the staircase leads up the 3 floors to the rooms that today serve as the offices of the palace management - with its simple purity, it has an impressive and awe-inspiring effect on the unsuspecting but attentive visitor.

I'm afraid more in a similar vein is probably to follow during the rest of September until I can escape the social seclusion of this provincial town and reclaim my normal life in Vienna.

Ikea: Needs and Cravings