The Visual and the Lexical

Some interesting points concerning my diploma thesis topic from the PhD thesis of A. Hall (The Meaning of Elf and Elves in Medieval England):

- Looking at the linguistic treatment of the word "aelf", they are not small and invisible
- Elves have sometimes been related to (fallen) angels. If you leave aside the "fallen" part, elves are related to holiness. This explains why Thomas Hardy, in Jude the Obsucre, compares the female main character twice with an elf or calls her elfin - thus stressing her purity.
- In the 8th century, aelf still connotated males only. It wasn't until the 11th century that the term could also denote females.

***

The cinemas in Linz seem to be overrun because a. it's vacation time and b. Avatar is on. It's seriously impossible to reserve a seat at the evening screenings, unless you want to sit in the first four rows. Despite this, I managed to see it (in the afternoon).
Avatar is awesome. I love it. Finally, after probably a year of bad films, one worth watching (except for Up and District 9, maybe). The creature design is so-so (in general, it's pretty obvious where the film drew its inspirations from, starting with the overall story down to most creature designs). The birds are neat. So are the winged frogs and the avatars/Na'vi. Most impressive of all is the landscape design. The beauty, colourfulness and richness of the plant life is sheer overwhelming (which is probably good and necessary, if you think about the gist of the story). The cinematography was good, too. I likefd how depth and perspective were used and played with, especially in the intitial sequence. That made the 3D effect even more impressive. Later it was used in a more subdued way, which I think I prefer when it comes to 3D. It just makes you feel at home with the technology, because it seems natural. When the technology is shoved into your face, it rather screams "Look at me. See how cool I am. The special effects are all you need to pay attention to. Ignore everything else."
The acting was very convincing. Sam Worthington and Sigourney Weaver did an outstanding job both as humans and in their avatars. Cameron has created a bunch of very likable characters (I'm thinking particularly of Trudy here).
-Minor spoiler warning. Don't read on if you haven't seen the film yet-
The story - yes, it was predictable and has been there before (multiple times). Does it matter? I think not. Most stories have parallels to stories that have been here before, because, well, we're all human and pretty much the same stuff makes us all tick. We write stories that we'd want to read ourselves, so it's clear that they have certain common denominators. The message of Avatar is an important one, and it hurts not to have it repeated.
For me, the film reminded me that I have wanted to read into various indigenous cultures for some time (too much stuff I want to read). Their culture, their belief system, their rites, and, most importantly, their place in today's globalised world. And not just the major, known ones, like the Native Americans or Aboriginees. Like with languages, there's a multitude of cultures out there which are dying every moment. I can only imagine the knowledge and individuality that has been lost in this process. To learn about and listen to them is, I believe, an enriching journey.

***

An awesome video of Eiga doing oji waza. My eyes are getting watery when I watch this.


Mit dem neuen Jahr kommt auch eine neue Ausgabe des vierteljährlich erscheinenden Fanzines für Spekulative Fiktion (Fantasy/SciFi/Horror/Mystery) Specflash. 90 Seiten an Kurzgeschichten, Interviews, Artikeln und Rezensionen laden zum Lesen ein. Das Hauptthema der Ausgabe sind Vampire. Empfehlenswert ist vor allem Udo Eickenbergs Kurzgeschichte "Die letzte Prüfung", die auf die Entwicklung der Menschheit in den nächsten 150 Jahren blickt.


Ich koche ja gerne und oft, und probiere fast täglich neue Rezepte aus. Bei der Rezeptsuche und beim Foren-Lesen kommt man dabei stets über das beliebte Wort "lecker". Mittlerweile kann ich's nicht mehr sehen. So geht es wohl nicht nur mir, denn beim Stöbern in einem ausgezeichneten Koch-Blog, kam ich über diesen Eintrag. Viel Spaß beim Lexikon-Erweitern!

Samhain

Shortly ago, I finished reading both of George R. R. Martin's Dreamsongs volumes. They are collections of short stories and scripts for TV episodes of all kinds of genres that Martin is popular for (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror). I can't say that I loved all stories, as I did in his collection "A Song for Lya and other stories" (which is an awesome book except for the multitude of editorial errors.
Anyway, Dreamsongs. What's really nice about the books is the variety they present. You can experience the whole of Martin's range and see if you like e.g. his SF-stuff as much as his Fantasy works. I'm still primarily a Fantasy lover, so the Science Fiction didn't appeal to me as much. But I discovered to my great surprise that I really liked his horror stories. Who would have guessed?

Today is Samhain (and Halloween, yeah, but that's by far not as appealing). Which means, for me, a time to withdraw and recollect. Time to remember and honour those who touched my life, those who came and went.
Have a good Samhain night.

***

Und für die Interessenten aus Linz und Umgebung: KendoLinz startet mit 5. November einen Grundkurs für alle, die schon immer diese wunderbare Kampfkunst ausprobieren wollten. Jetzt ist ein guter Zeitpunkt dafür ;)
Einfach auf www.kendolinz.org schauen für nähere Informationen.

Entertainment

I feel bad for only fulfilling 15 of 100 basic skills for geeks. Ah, it seems my nerd days are over.

Instead, I find myself enjoying this Kendo video way too much. I want to play it over and over again, just to enjoy that feeling of pure love that Kendo gives me and to exult in the joy of gogi. Every inch of that video speaks through body language (which I'm probably only reading because I understand at most 5% of what is said ... taisho, shimpan, shiai, ippon, yuko datotsu, tehehehe). The people clapping, the kenshi's utter look of bewilderment. Pure love.

Another lovely film is this stop-motion production. Very cute.

***

Der Rechberger Mittelaltermarkt fand wieder statt, und nach dem wunderbaren Erlebnis letztes Jahr hatte ich natürlich hohe Erwartungen. Leider wohl zu hoch, denn dieses Jahr fand ich ihn etwas enttäuschend. In der Lagerwiese waren "Löcher", wo letztes Jahr Gruppen waren, und einige der hochwertigen Händlerstände, die mir noch gut in Erinnerung waren, fehlten auch. Dafür gab's Jonglage zum Mitmachen und die Möglichkeit einer Quickie-Hochzeit.
Das Ambiente ist allerdings unschlagbar, daher: Nächstes Jahr wieder!

What I learned from my thesis

Some concepts I came across while writing....


Religious transcendence.
In Christianity: transcending life and death.
In Buddhism: transcendence between the enlightened and unenlightened being.
Jean-Paul Satre: transcending the ego; meaning: allowing others to influence you.

engl. emancipation
* Befreiung
* Emanzipation
* Gleichberechtigung
(Nope, I was not aware of all these meanings.)

And some absolutely fantastic quotes from May Kendall's and Andrew Lang's That Very Mab (while I love Fiona Macleod's "The Annir-Coille" deeply, and of all texts for my thesis it is still my favourite one, when it comes to socio-political satire nothing can beat That Very Mab):

"[...] we are being educated up to a very high point. It saves people the trouble of thinking for themselves, certainly; they can always get all their thoughts now, ready made, on every kind of subject, and at extremely low prices. They only have to make up their minds what to take, and generally they take the cheapest. There is a great demand for cheap thought just now, especially when it is advertised as being of superior quality."

"[...] education is compulsory. Eating is not compulsory; you may starve, you must learn."

"[...] it is part of their religion to walk as fast as they can, not only through Cheapside but through life. The one who can walk fastest, and knock down the greatest number of other people, gets a prize."

"Even the dynamiters themselves don't appear to have gone into the whole logic of it. I suppose that they are tired of only blowing things up on paper, and they are people who have a great objection to things in general. They complain that they can't get justice from the universe in its present state of preservation, and therefore they are going to blow as much of it as possible into what they call smithereens, and try to get justice from the smithereens. It is a new scheme they have hit upon, a kind of scientific experiment. The theory appears to be, that justice is the product of Nihilism plus public buildings blown up by dynamite, and that the more public buildings they blow up the more justice they will obtain."

***

But the most important thing I learned from my thesis - stress, and that it's not really worth it. To continue with the quotes:

All the e-mails I get these days start with sorry but I've been busy, and I don't understand how we can be so busy and then have nothing to say to each other.
- Jon McGregor, "if nobody speaks of remarkable things"

We're taught that being busy and occupied means being industrious and hardworking. To me, however, it feels like a loss of the quality of life. The last few weeks, I've been so glad I'm doing Kendo, because it gave me the opportunity to get out and away from work and hit people. And, sometimes, that's just what you gotta do.

Ahem. But to stick to the truth, it's not the hitting-people thing that I needed. It's the part about getting away and emptying my mind. 'tis good that Kendo exists in my life.

***

It "only" took nine sessions of live-drawing and repeated urges from the supervisor for me to try out a different medium. Charcoal. It's actually quite cool and fun. I think I end up with better results for the 10-minute poses than with graphite. The longer poses still yield in nicer pictures with graphite.

In the dojo now

A martial art from the Rising Sun
Before you do it, it sounds like fun
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now

Now you remember what the chairman said
Just some suburi on a fictitious head
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now

You’ll be the hero of the shiai-jo
If only you could hit some do
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now

Polite bows before the “hajime!”
When your true weakness shows there’s just one way
You're in the shiai-jo now
Oh, oh, you're in the shiai-jo now

Men ippon scored in only one go
It hurts a lot when you are toe on toe
If you want to survive you better practice do
You're in the shai-jo now
Oh, oh, you're in the shiai-jo now

Kiai ring out in the dead of night
The sensei calls (stand up and fight)
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now

You've got your training schedule
Be it dark or light
You practice footwork
But it don't seem right
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now

After 1000 haya-suburi there’s only sweat I see
Are kata illusion or reality?
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now
You're in the dojo now
Oh, oh, you're in the dojo now

Once

Some quotes I stumbled over in the last weeks:

From Babylon 5 (I re-watched all seasons recently - fun :D)

"I don't watch TV. It's a cultural wasteland filled with inappropriate metaphors and an unrealistic portrayal of life created by a liberal media elite."

(not quite as good as Ivanova's:
"Who is this? Identify yourself?"
"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander, daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengence and the boot that is gonna kick your sorry ass back to earth. I am death incarnate. And the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
...but also quite amusing when hearing it in the series.)


And from a book I've just finished reading:

"Linda Stone [...] labeled the disease of the Internet age 'continuous partial attention'-two people doing six things, devoting only partial attention to each one-she remarked to me, 'We're so accessible, we're inaccessible. We can't find the off switch on our devices or on ourselves. We want to wear an iPod as much to listen to our own playlists as to block out the rest of the world and protect ourselves from all that noise. We are everywhere-except where we actually are physically."

and

"Does your society have more memories than dreams or more dreams than memories?
By dreams I mean the positive, life-affirming variety. [...] 'One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past. Same with countries. You don't want to forget your identity. I am glad you were great in the fourteenth century, but that was then and this is now. When memories exceed dreams, the end is near. [...]' In societies that have more memories than dreams, too many people are spending too many days looking backward. They see dignity, affirmation, and self-worth not by mining the present but by chewing on the past. And even that is usually not a real past but an imagined and adorned past. Indeed, such societies focus all their imagination on making that imagined past even more beautiful than it ever was, and then they cling to it like a rosary or a strand of worry beads, rather than imagining a better future and acting on that."

***

Last week I noticed one of the small, private bookshops in downtown had closed down. It had been a family business for 200 years. The small note on the door sounded as if the owner had had a very hard time actually deciding he had to close the shop for good. Seeing it hit me by surprise, too, even though it shouldn't. You grow so familiar with the small businesses that you walk past regularly that you take them for granted.
But, shamefully I have to admit it has been years since the last time I bought a book there. My tries to buy local products haven't really gone much further than the food-sector.

I was similarly surprised when I walked into the Moviemento on Thursday and saw masses of people queuing up for the film I wanted to see. It seems arthouse films aren't so much arthouse anymore when it comes to the audience. That's probably good. Hollywood shouldn't be the only one to make money.
The film I saw was Once. I was a bit unhappy at first, because the film had German subtitles, but ended up being happy about that because the story is set in Dublin and one of the protagonists is Irish - so I got to listen to that lovely Irish accent after not having heard it in a long time. Overall, the language was a big treat in the film. Like many other aspects, it felt very natural and realistic. It isn't the polished, movie-English that you get in most films nowadays. It's colloquial, down-to-earth and how I remember people speak (sometimes painfully so, bringing up old memories).
The music is another treat. It has a big part in the film, and admittedly, I only wento to watch the film because I had listened to the soundtrack over and over again in the last weeks and it stayed with me all the time (you can listen to all of it here).
All in all, it's a very rare and special film. I don't remember the last time I sat in a cinema and forgot where I was, completely emerged in the story that evolved between the screen and my mind. Walking out of the cinema, I was speechless, slightly confused and in a way out of touch with my surroundings, as a part of me was still within the story.
It was quite an experience.

***

Small memory from last month:

Impressions

I love how life repeatedly shows me that it is to a great degree fate-based. Things you do show their after-effects almost a decade later (e.g. if I hadn't played a certain MMORPG in 2001, I wouldn't be doing Kendo now). Sometimes it seems that most of the good stuff in life is based on coincidences. Maybe karma has its part, too. Whatever it is, I like it.

***

Small stuff that found its basis in the Kendo training of the last few days.

From the weekend:



And from Monday's training:



(Uh, I should stop mixing languages in pictures...)

Braindead II

(because everything needs a sequel these days)



Kendo often results in the blissful state of the post-Kendo-zombie-phase, which is mainly defined by my brain's inability to formulate even one coherent thought. When you're a very advanced kenshi, you can summon it up even before training ends, call it mushin and people look at you admiringly for it. As a newbie kenshi like me, you are a victim rather than a summoner and call it the much less flattering term *TILT*.

Looking Back

Yesterday was the end of a 9-successive-days-of-Kendo-period, thanks to the seminar we had this week (and it really should have been 10 days). The seminar went pretty well, considering that I had to hop through the flat on one leg last Wednesday because the other hurt just a little too for me to bother with walking properly. Interesting experience.
It was fun (just too short), and I learned loads - more than on the last one, I think. Made me realize again how much I still have to learn about the very basic techniques. It's great to have so many people who give you helpful criticism.
And good that you only feel how tired you are when everything's over.

***

Less than two weeks till new year, so I think it's time to reflect a bit on 2007. Chronologically:

January: First discussions with my supervisor concerning my thesis topic. Broke up all contact with my ex. Turned out to be an excellent decision, letting me move on with my life without draging old baggage behind.
February: The DAF community project Zoomquilt II, to which I contributed, was released.
March: Did some radical food experiments in my first week of the new semester, which caused my immune system to break down and left me first "only" ill, then with high fever and finally with an infection of my middle ear for two weeks. Wrote a short story containing talking food (Fairtrade milk and organic milk argued with each other about which is better) during that fever at 2am (I submitted that story to a writer's contest. Surprisingly, it didn't win). Decided to not ever repeat that food experiment. Found a second roleplaying group to DM. Started Kendo in Salzburg.
May: Went to Graz to for the Schandmaul concert, visited the Riegersburg and Zotter chocolate factory. Lots of fun. Also went to two medieval fairs on my birthday weekend, which was the best present Markus and Christine could have given me.
June: Determined my thesis topic after lots of reading during the semester.
July: Got to know an almost completely different kind of Kendo in Linz. Sticked with it. Began my daily holiday schedule of staying in the garden during the day, swimming 1-2h per day and reading books for my thesis the rest of the time. Figured that combining physical with mental work is really the most enjoyable way to get work done.
August: Went to my first Kendo seminar. Also went to several medieval fairs and visited the Turba Ferox in Vienna.
September: One week Lesereise of the Germanistik. Ate the best organic apples I've ever tasted there. The lack of a computer for a week and the sense of quietude, increased time and heightened achievement made me rething my computer habits (but, alas, still nothing has changed).
October: New semester of uni started. Found out my timetable is even less crowded than I thought. Consequently decided to move out of my flat in Salzburg. Got bogu. Got stressed because a friend who had started working on her thesis at the same time as I did had already begun writing hers.
November: Got even more stressed because said friend reached page 70 of her thesis, while I still wasn't writing. Had a 2-weekend communication workshop at uni, learning a lot about voice and breathing. Started fighting in bogu. Spent a weekend training Kendo in Innsbruck. Went to the Gesundheitsmesse in Wels, catching the wrong train for the first time in my life (resulting in me finding creative ways to spend an hour at a pitch-black, open train station in the cold). Started sculpting. Went to the first research conference in my life.
December: Said friend finished her thesis. Started writing mine. Had my second Kendo seminar.

So, none of my decisions backfired on me, which is great. All in all, it was a really, really good year. Better than 2006, I think. Actually, thinking back, it was probably the best after 2004/05 (simply because it takes a lot to top the year I spent in Oxford). I'll only reluctantly say goodbye.

Plans for 2008: Finish uni, find a job, move into my own flat. Paint more and improve my technique. Continue Kendo. Spend less money (or rather, spend money only when it's really necessary, and more specifically, buy books only when I'm through with the pile of unread books next to my bed).

***

As written above, I started sculpting about a month ago. I always wanted to get into it, but couldn't get Super Sculpey anywhere. When I ran out of patience (or was at a point of too much motivation) I looked a bit around online and found that a few sculptors use Fimo Soft and Green Stuff and have good end results. Since Fimo is much more easily to get, I just tried it. Here, then, are the first two (fairly average) sculptures of my life (and more to follow after Christmas).
The first one's not in it's finished stage, because I painted over some of the stuff on his clothes after having taken the pictures; but it's still 94% finished.

Tread Soflty

Since I couldn't go to one Kendo practice this week, I decided to instead raid the university library for interesting books (as long as I still can, which won't be long, as I now, err, rather spontaneously decided to fully move back to Linz; still can't believe I'm practically finished with my studies - it happened so fast and just when I was getting comfortable with everything).
So I read Musashi's Book of Five Rings the last days. I really liked the Ground Book. It contains some very, very nice analogies (even though it sort of told me with every word that Kendo isn't what I should do, hmmm). The other Books had some interesting tidbits, too - I particularly liked "Always keep in mind that you can clench your left hand into a fist and thrust it at your enemy's face" - but seemed less informative for me compared to the Ground Book. Maybe you need to do ji-geiko to get more out of them. I also liked the introduction and the notes (which were very helpful!). They made me look forward to reading Hagakure and Bushido.
All in all an interesting and quick read, although I'm not fully convinced by the translation. I have the feeling that it's a secondary translation based on an English translation.
The book also gave me lots of inspiration for new paintings, which is always a big plus!

This painting began with one sentence from Musashi, but then quickly went into the direction of William Butler Yeats:

He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Which is an absolutely beautiful poem. Not for the love-poem-part, but for the last line. It's the purest expression of caritas. When I end up in an embarrassing situation, I usually just say or do anything to get the situation over with as quickly as possible. The problem is that this is sometimes, unintentionally, done at the expense of others. So this is a reminder to myself that other people have feelings too and that I should think twice (or five times or ten) before saying or doing something rashly to get out of a situation - because in the long run it's much more satisfactory for both to be careful in expressing yourself, so you say exactly what you mean and nothing else.



And here's probably the first environmental painting I've ever done. Created for the weekly challenge over at DAF.

Granum

My first Kendo Seminar is over. It was an interesting and fun experience, and I learned a lot (although I only ever realize how much I actually learned when I look at the notes I took every day, which comprise two pages of small, squashed handwriting). While I didn't reach the limits of my bodily energy and felt it could have been more exhausting, I probably did reach the limits of my mental learning capacities with the nine Kihon-waza.
Interestingly enough, as the days went by I got gradually less sleep, which I didn't mind until the last day on which I was walking around like a zombie after midday and fell asleep when I came home. Allegedly you need less sleep when you exercise a lot. I'd believe it if I didn't know that I got up at 6am on Saturday because my brother had said that my strikes suck and I therefore wanted to be in the dojo a bit earlier to practice a bit.
On the one hand I'm sorry it's over, but on the other glad, because I got a few painful do strikes on the hip and a men on my fingers on the last day, and everybody's concentration wouldn't have increased, so such accidents might have happened more often. There's also this huge amount of experiences you get within a few days - I held a Iaido sword in my hands, learned nine Kihon-wazas and a Nihon-kata, consulted Google and YouTube more than ever, needed a tape for my feet for the first time, had my first exam and have now tons of stuff that I know I have to improve on - I'll need some time to process all of that.

Again, I can't help but to see the similarity to drawing. There's always room to improve, and especially as a beginner or amateur you feel overwhelmed and sometimes demotivated at this huge task ahead of you.

***

I finished Not on the Label today. The last chapter on The Ready Meal was very interesting and insightful, although only partly applicable for me, as I don't eat ready meals. The rest of the book was nice, too, but not as useful. The last chapter talked not only about ready meals, but also about the ingredients of yoghurts and how eating habits have changes through the decades (e.g. We now consume many more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3 fatty acids. The ratio should be 1:1, but is now at 10:1 or even 20:1. The chapter also discussed how there may be a link between omega-3 fatty acids and a reduction of violence).

I also quite liked the afterword of the book:
"Food is one of life's great pleasures. Shopping for it, preparing it and eating it has bound people together for centuries. It is in eating together that we are socialized. In the end, it's about what kind of society we want."

***

A quick design I made for a roleplaying game:

Zen and Jedenspeigen

Kendo training on Thursday was great. Afterwards it felt as if endorphins rather than blood and water were flowing through my body. I again realized that I really have to work on my concentration. It seems to have deteriorated over the years, and I'm now much too easily distracted (causing me afterwards to do some research on the philosophy behind it. Wikipedia says it takes many years to be capable of mushin. I think that's an understatement).
I'm trying to apply what I learn from Kendo to drawing/painting. There are similarities. My arm and wrist are tensed up during Kendo; that's probably also what makes my sketches look so unappealing (apart from the anatomy mistakes). Maybe my grip on the pencil should be much more relaxed and not as tight as it is, so the end result won't look forced and I can pay more attention to the lineweight. I probably also should approach drawing more analytically - observe, notice patterns and causes for mistakes and eradicate them. You learn more effectively when you're aware of every step you take, because then you see when you take the wrong path.

***

I spent the weekend in Vienna, buying books and going to a medieval fair. I finished reading one book on the train and came back with five new books. The shelf next to my bed is now officially unable to take more books.
I started reading Not on the Label, which seems to be very similar to We Feed the World, only that it's specific to the British market. The author had a look at products from Sainsbury and Wal-Mart, talked to workers in Birmingham, etc. So in the end it will probably be not as useful to me as it could be, but I got it for 1€, so I won't complain. So far I found out that packaged salad is put into water with chlorine before being packaged, with a chlorine level twenty times higher than in swimming pools. Yummy. Another good reason for me to buy organic food.

The market in Jedenspeigen was nice, although I guess that was mostly because of the people I met there. Rhiannon played quite frequently, but apart from them the program didn't interest me that much. The market was also fairly small and took place on a field (the organizers had lots of hey put on the ground). The earth was extremely dry, there were lots of people, resulting in lots of dirt being whirled up and blown into our faces. I was regularly trying to get the dirt out from under my contact lenses. However, what I really liked about the market was that the people from the craft guild (Handwerksgilde) were there and gave you lengthy explanations when you asked about their work. I learned a lot from listening to them. They were also very friendly and approachable.


A very nice church that we came across while walking to the market. Lovely architecture.


One of the craft guild.


Two "knights" practicing their sword play. That was also a very nice visual image, those two silhouettes moving about in front of the sky.

Kendo and BBC

Since I have holidays now there's not University Kendo training. So my brother and me contacted the Kendo society in Linz and asked if we could train with them. On Tuesday was our first day.
It needs to be said that the Kendo I do in Salzburg is more free, less perfectionist and less aimed at tournaments, while my brother's society in Graz and the one in Linz (especially the one in Linz) go all the way for tournaments. So I now next to nothing about all the formalities, what the single kata are called, what a big men and a small men is, etc. And, sure enough, this hit me right at the beginning when everybody got into a circle and we did exercises with everybody counting to ten ... in Japanese. Imagine you're standing around with, oh, say twelve people and all of them count perfectly in Japanese, even your own brother (hmpf, what a betrayal). In the end I sort of whinced my numbers and hoped it would be over soon. Oh the shame. I need to learn Japanese till next week.
Apart from that, it was great. The different level of the group in Linz gives me a wonderful chance to improve a lot and to learn massively. Especially because, and this is what I like most about it, every advanced kendoka gives helpful instructions to the novices during the exercises (so in my case, everybody else tells me what I am doing wrong, haha!). I'd probably be scared and intimidated to death if the people weren't so friendly. Well, I'm looking forward to learning and improving. Everybody is a novice of anything at some point of their life.

***

I also seem to have a British Films - phase. I liked Plots with a View from the first time I saw it, then saw Calendar Girls some time last week and watched several of the BBC evening shows the last two days. Granted, most of them I don't find great and kept watching them purely for their accents. I liked Liar though. It's an interesting show, the audience seems involved and I love the parts where the people throw in colloquial English. I also saw Little Britain, which seems to have a fanship among some students of English in Austria. Not sure what to think of it. Some is funny, some is gross, some I just don't understand. Nod and accept, I guess.


So, on Saturday we have the medieval fair (yay!) and in two weeks Alex is visiting me (I'm noticing a peculiar tendancy in my life involving guys who are willing to drive 8-10h to see me ... hmmmm). Ah, yes: Also, one of my paintings is featured in the Ascheherold 6, which is a magazine providing adventures and other materials for the free RPG Darkage. I'm not too familiar with the RPG (although it sounds interesting and fun, from what I've read), but there's also an artist's portrait (of me) in the Ascheherold, and also a part about life, battle and fashion in the Middleages, so it's worth checking out.
(Err. That is, if you speak German. Otherwise you can just look at the pictures

Not Buying It

I finished reading the book. It was okay - some good stuff and some stuff that wasn't interesting for me. The book is divided in chapters, one for each month. The first three months didn't give me much useful/interesting information. After that it got better, as the author got involved with groups and visited people who follow an alternative lifestyle.
Overall, though, the book didn't fullfill the hopes I had in it. Mostly it showed me that compared to some of the Americans described in the book, my own way of living is alright. I raised my eyebrows a few times as I read about kitchens containing at least four types of rice and about people who are proud to have eaten out only under ten times in the last six months.
The insights at the end were interesting, and mostly comply with my own point of view. I was surprised by the impact that year had on the author's relationship with her partner (they did the year without shopping together). For some reason I have the opinion that most guys wouldn't want to break free from the comfort culture (because they see no use in it?). If I did something like that, I wouldn't even consider asking my partner to join me - probably because most people in my surroundings get annoyed whenever I raise the topic ethic living.

I figured there are three behaviour types that are considered to be ethical in respect to consuming:

a. Buying organic goods
b. Buying Fairtrade goods
c. Cosuming less

While you can always do c, you get some problems when you try to combine it with both a and b. Firstly it's hard to find stuff that's both Fairtrade and organic - shops specialise either in organic goods or Fairtrade. Secondly, Fairtrade goods come from very, very far away, which increases the good's environmental footprint. Combine that with the try to buy groceries from local farmers and avoid fruits, vegetables, etc. from far away countries, and you're facing tough decisions.
If you want to buy apples, and have the choice between common apples from Austria/your country and organic apples from Spain or Italy, which is the better choice?
Thing is, every one of the categories I stated above stands for something else. Organic goods are produced with regards to the environment (their impact on your pocket will probably be bigger than their impact on your health, and they probably taste the same). Fairtrade goods center on human rights. Consuming less is a statement against pop culture and consumer culture. I guess you have no other choice than to set priorities (apart from c, which you can do regardless). Which is more important, human rights or protecting the environment? Does the organic-ness of the apples from Spain even out the transport effects on the environment? I have no idea.
(In the end I went for Austrian apples, though.)

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Kendo training was outside today. What an amazing experience. We're lucky that our dojo is part of a leisure activity centre for children and youths, so there is a big greenspace attached. Not to mention how handsome the guys in the hakama look when they're standing on the grass and the wind moves the garment slightly (ever since I started Kendo and saw the sensai in his hakama for the first time I wanted to make a painting depicting it). Today's training was less exhausting, because we just worked on the zen mindset and practiced cutting techniques involving three enemies. Most of all, I like the constant support of the sensai - improving our techniques without saying what we're doing is wrong, adapting individually to our various needs. Shame I didn't start with it earlier.

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Rough painting I did for one of the contests over at the ImagineFX website. The face is heavily referenced, obviously, to get the likeness. I still need to go over it again to polish it a bit - which I had intended to do before submitting it, but since I somehow messed up the deadline and had a day less than expected, this is how far it got. Those are the problems you're confronted with when you don't just paint for yourself :)