I Don't Feel Like Dancing!

Yay, classes over, papers over, presentations over and exams over! Wooooooooooohoooooooo!

If I had the money, I'd be dancing all over the globe, just like Matt here:

Pigtails (Yes, Pigtails.)

Isn't it pathetic that the only even remotely interesting (and I'm wildly exaggerating here) topic I have to blog about these days is that for no apparent reason I wore my hair in pigtails today? I'll go ahead and answer that for you: it is.

Anywhoo, there are more exciting things to come! Monday is my last exam and then I plan to spend my last three weeks here exploring Montréal (which admittedly I haven't really done so far), have lots of (potentially alcohol induced, but I'm just speculating here) fun and last but not least, rock New York one more time! Woooooooohooooooooooo! It's gonna be legen - wait for it! - dary!

Ist es nicht irgendwie erbärmlich, dass das einzig auch nur annähernd interessante (und ich übertreibe hier masslos), über das ich momentan berichten kann, meine heute spontan improvisierte Frisur ist? Rhetorische Frage, ich weiss...

Aber eeeegaaal, weil: es kommen viel viel töllere Zeiten auf mich zu! Montag ist meine letzte Prüfung, danach hab ich vor während meiner restlichen drei Wochen hier endlich mal Montréal näher zu erkunden, viel (unter Umständen, vielleicht, eventuell, möglicherweise alkoholunterstützten) Spass zu haben und New York nochmals zu roqen! Yatttaaaaaaaaa!

Merry Melodies

Well, not much to tell, the weather's been nice (see picture), it has been a pretty lazy weekend so far and now I really have to get into gear to finish two papers for tomorrow. If you want to see what music keeps me awake while doing so, click here. Recommendations are always welcome, of course!

The other picture is me in all my writing-papers-glory. Pretty, isn't it? And yes, I'll be a very happy bunny once the stress is over.

Nicht viel zu erzählen grad, Wetter ist ganz gut (siehe Foto), war ein faules Wochenende, dafür muss ich jetz aber langsam in die Gänge kommen um zwei Arbeiten bis morgen fertig zu kriegen...Falls ihr wissen wollt, was für Musik mich dabei wachhält, klickt hier. Empfehlungen sind natürlich immer willkommen!

Dans andere Bild zeigt mich in meiner glorreichen ich-muss-Arbeiten-schreiben-Montur. Hübsch nicht? Ja, ich freu mich darauf, wenn der Stress vorbei ist.

Isn't It Ironic?

Only it's not, the whole thing is just sad: Liviu Librescu, Jewish-Romanian Holocaust survivor also survived Ceausescu's dictatorship in Romania and living in Israel, only to be be killed at the shootings in Virginia a couple of days ago, while trying to save his students. Makes you wonder about destiny and such, doesn't it? He survived so many dangerous situations and was therefore, at the age of 76, able to save a classroom of students.

Surely a heroic way to go, but things like that just make me sad. Just by looking at this one man's biography you get a glimpse of 4 different kinds of human atrocities: genocide, dictatorship, ethnic conflict and lone gunmen who want to "make a statement" or whatever their reasoning is. Oh, and how could I forget the media, who are absolutely loving this. People suck. Maybe with the exception of Mr. Librescu.

The Weight On My Shoulders...

...aka der Stein auf meinem Herzen ist jetzt vom selbigen gefallen. Nach langem hin und her habe ich mich nämlich entschieden, meine Masterarbeit erst nach meiner Rückkehr zu schreiben, aber dafür mindestens 2 Monate voll dafür einzusetzen (ich hab gottseidank brav auf meine Finanzen geschaut während meinem Aufenthalt hier).

Ihr könnt euch gar nicht vorstellen, wie erleichtert ich jetzt bin! Es bedeutet zwar, dass ich mein Diplom leider erst im Frühling 2008 erhalten werde, was sich nicht grade gut macht auf dem Papier (Studium 2001-2008? Autsch.), aber dafür werde ich eine hoffentlich saubere und gelungene Arbeit abliefern können. Ich glaube, das ist es mir wert!

...has been lifted. After several weeks of pondering and deliberating with myself, I've finally decided to only start writing my Master's Thesis when I get back home, dedicating at least 2 months entirely to this project (thank God I kept my finances somewhat in check during my stay here).

You can't imagine, how relieved I am to have made this decision! Unfortunately it means that I will only get my Master's diploma in Spring 2008, but at least I will hopefully deliver a well-written and thoroughly researched paper. I think that's worth it!

Let's Go To The Mall

Putting up all these videos made me realize that I've kept the most important one from you! One of the main characters of one of my favourite tv shows (How I Met Your Mother) recently revealed that she used to be a teenage pop-star in Canada. Please, do not miss the awesomeness that is the video to Robin Sparkles' minor hit, "Let's Go To The Mall":




By the way, watching the show is totally worth it. Shameless advertising, I know, but HIMYM rocks my body till Canada Day!

In Case...

...you've always wanted to hear a two-year-old scream "I want my money, bitch!" at Will Ferrell, here's your chance:

Update: youtube has removed the video, you can still find it here.

One Love

...performed by Ana and Jordan from Argentina at the exchange Gala on Friday! The video is not the best quality, but enjoy anyway!

A Well-Deserved Break

Before entering the hell that will be the next two weeks, I took Friday's HEChange-"Gala" as an opportunity to let loose. Most exchange students were there, which was nice and a great time was had by all! But you know what wasn't so great? This morning. Damn, I'm getting too old for hangovers. More Pics.

Update: Milka's Pics.

Bevor ich mich voller Elan in die heisse Phase meiner Uni-Arbeiten stürze, wollte ich noch einmal richtig feiern und die ganzen Papers, Präsentationen und Prüfungen für einen Abend vergessen. Da traf es sich grad gut, dass gestern die HEChange-"Gala" für uns Austauschstudenten stattfand! Die Stimmung war gut, der Alkohol billig - was will man mehr? Der weniger lustige Teil war dann der heutige Tag. Ich glaub ich bin einfach langsam zu alt für so miese Kater! Mehr Bilder.

Update:: Milkas Fotos.

Pardon my French

Things I've learned:

avocat = Avocado
avocat = lawyer / Anwalt
défi = challenge / Herausforderung not defeat / Niederlage
ouragan = hurricane / Orkan not Orang-Utan
enjeu = f*****g everything / das was auf dem Spiel steht (oder so) not enjoy

Spring is was here!

Need I say more? Good thing I'm stuck inside for the next two weeks, I guess...

Good Times?

You tell me!

Sagt ihr's mir!

Update: The Good Times are killing me.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Ich möchte and dieser Stelle der besten Mama der Welt alles Gute zum Geburtstag wünschen!! Ihr Alter wird natürlich nicht verraten, nur dass sie sich soweit ganz gut gehalten hat;-). Weiter so Mama und danke unseren Genen, dass Botox wahrscheinlich nie ein Thema für Dich sein wird! Leider hab ich auf meinem Computer nur dieses eine Foto von Mummy Dearest gefunden, also darf ich euch gleichzeitig René vorstellen, das ist der mit den langen Haaren (obwohl mir Mama kürzlich gebeichtet hat, dass sie ihre Haare jetzt auch wachsen lässt, nehme ich doch an, dass sie Renés Haarpracht noch nicht ganz eingeholt hat). Also lieber René und alle anderen netten Menschen, die meine liebe Mutter (aka Elizabeth) kennen: ruft sie an, schickt sms, e-mail, was auch immer - lasst sie einfach wissen, dass ihr an sie denkt! Und wenn ihr könnt, gebt ihr einen dicken Kuss von mir, es dauert nämlich noch ein paar Wochen, bis ich das wieder selber tun kann...

Week 14, Saturday: Ze Hockey And Ze Dancing

After Milka's Great Easter Brunch we decided to watch the Montréal - Toronto hockey match, since it was an important one for Montréal, deciding whether they had a shot at getting into the Playoffs or not. So we went and bought some drinks and snacks and headed to Nina's place, where her roommate was hosting a hockey-viewing-party anyway. The game was great, very fast paced and with lots of goals. The outcome wasn't so great though, the Montréal Canadians lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs 5:6 and therefore lost their chance to go into the Playoffs.

But we can't have a hockey match keep our spirits down, so we decided to join Aless and her visitors from Switzerland (Lausanne, so no talking swiss-german for me...) and go out. We ended up at "The Ballroom", a club on St. Laurent. It was okay, but if you know me you know that I'm not exactly a clubbing person. I get annoyed by the music, the prices and by a large portion of the people who frequent "stylish" in-locations. Considering all this, it was alright but sleep-deprivation can only be fought for so long and I left around 2 am and walked home.

Week 14, Saturday: Ze Michelle And Ze Easter

After only one hour's sleep due to a stupid paper about strikes (specifically about the consequences of strikes, specifically about the Asbestos Strike of 1949) that I had to finish, I headed out to meet Michelle (the Australian one who now lives in Toronto) and her boyfriend Jeremy for coffee. Michelle and I hadn't seen each other in a year and it was nice to see a familiar face here in Montréal!

Afterwards I headed to Milka's place for an authentic Polish Easter Brunch, with a delicious potato and meat-soup, a Polish Easter dish with ham, eggs and horse radish and a delicious Polish Easter cake to boot! I had also brought along some of the Swiss Chocolate eggs my mum had sent me and they were very much appreciated as well:-). It was really nice to have a real Easter celebration of sorts and the food was great! Thanks a lot Milka!!

Week 14, Tuesday: Ze Hockey

Since hockey is a big deal here in Canada and I am sort of personally invested in the Montréal Canadians with the two swiss players they have (Mark Streit and David Aebischer, though I was told not to mention the latter - apparently Mr. Goalkeeper didn't always keep the goals the way the fans would've liked him to), we headed to the Peel Pub, a sports bar, on Tuesday to watch the Montréal - Boston match. Montréal won, but as you will see in a later post, they might as well have lost. Anyway, we continued with Monday's beer & food theme and had a great time.

Week 14, Monday: Ze Pancakes

Hi folks! Since I haven't blogged in almost a week but have done a lot of fun things in the meantime, I'll just split the past week (week 14 of my stay!) into several posts. Just for the heck of it, let's start with Monday! Yummy pancake-dinner day! Anna, one of the exchange students from Sweden, let us invade the kitchen at the university residence / dormitory she's staying at (the Virgin-tower to be exact, which apparently is nicknamed that because only girls live there. I somehow doubt they're all virgins though...). When I got there the big pancake-making-machinery was already in motion and all I had to do was talk to nice people, drink my beer and wait for the pancakes to arrive. Which they did! And as I said, they were yummy! And since we didn't really have a lot of plates but did have a lot of pancakes and exchange students, we just used paper towels (see picture number 3). Ah, the uncomplicated ways of the homo studiensis (or enter other fancy expression for "student" here).

Heimweh: wichtige Beratungsfirma gibt mir recht

Gemäss einer Studie der Unternehmensberatungsfirma Mercer sind Zürich und Genf weltweit die Städte mit der höchsten Lebensqualität. Endlich hab ich einen wissenschaftlichen Beweis für mein eher subjektives "zu Hause ist es doch am schönsten"-Gefühl! Ich wohn zwar nicht in Zürich, aber dass beide Top-plazierten Städte in der Schweiz liegen ist meines Erachtens doch einigermassen aussagekräftig!

Zugegebenermassen war ich Zürich gegenüber auch schon skeptischer eingestellt, besonders nachdem mir dieses Video einer sogenannten "Private Fiction"-Party zugespielt wurde. Ich habe aber letzten Samstag entdeckt, dass das Montréaler Partyvolk den Zürchern was Geschmacksverirrungen angeht in nichts nachsteht. Uniform des Abends waren Leggings, Stirnbänder und weisse Plastik-Rosenkränze um den Hals. Leider hab ich mich nicht getraut die Sonderlinge in ihrer vollen Pracht abzulichten, aber ein paar diskrete Schnappschüsse gibt's hier. War jedenfalls ein ziemlicher Kulturschock. Ach ja, Anlass war die "Ed Banger Records Party" im Club Soda.

Am Sonntag Abend schliesslich hat es Montréal's einziges mexikanisches Restaurant "3 Amigos" (wie originell!) dann doch noch geschafft mein Heimweh etwas zu dämpfen: Tacos für 50 Cent und auch sonst unverschämt günstig im Vergleich zum "Tres Amigos" in St. Gallen! Und die leckeren (und riesigen!) bunten Margaritas und Daiquiris erst! Olé!