Montag, 26. September 2016

Learning Finnish

October is coming. And with it, University. I've been studying for longer than I feel comfortable sharing and I'm in desperate need of some curricula from other subjects to complete my journey at Uni Wien. 


I've tried to take some of the subjects that are close to my major, which is media and communica1tion science (in short, journalism), but they all bored me to death, resulting in bad results or even better, tests never taken.
So, I decided I might as well take advantage of the possibility to learn a new language while I still have the chance. I have the grand qualification in Latin, and that is something a lot of people do not have and therefor have to take latinum classes first. I don't; I can jump right into classes.


And I've wanted to learn Finnish since... I was 13 I think. And I know I was a1 little crazy back then and I know that I'm a lot crazy now. I remember getting a Finnish dictionary at the library in my home tow1n a1nd looking up words, w1riting them dow1n on flash cards to study. Of course, i never got very far. I think the most Finnish I picked up was through watching the Nightwish DVD, listening to Levan Polka on repeat and drinking with Finnish persons.
So, why do i still want to learn Finnish?
There are idiotic reasons and reasons that are actually healthy.
I haven't really had a life since over a year, obsessing over (Finnish) things and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel in April... but guess what! There was no life waiting for me there. There was a new apartment that desperately needed renovations and work weeks. 7 days straight, one day off, and so on. I went to my dance classes because I paid for them up front, but if I had the choice, I would have stayed at home, sleeping. That's basically what sums up my life the whole summer: Working, sleeping, working. And it wasn't all for nothing. In May I decided I want to go Epic Metal Fest in the Netherlands and since then more and more bands I love have announced concerts in my area. And if they didn't, I would book a train ticket. Nothing makes me feel as alive as a concert, so I will chase that feeling. And if it ruins me. But after working nonstop all summer, I can afford all these trips and I honestly can't wait!

But I know that waiting for the next concert is not enough. I need something of value to do in my everyday life. I want to write more again. I think of writing a serial novel for this blog. I've had ideas floating around and I think I turn them into something fun to read. 
The finnish classes are on three days of the week, so I'll be spending a lot of time with that as it is. A friend asked me to share my new acquired wisdom with her and I think I'll aslo keep updates here on the blog. 
It finally feels like I have something more to do with my life than just work and sleep. And I'm incredibly looking forward to it.

...

And if you ask me why, isn't this view reason enough?

Montag, 19. September 2016

Band Drama #1

I love drama, especially when it doesn't affect me directly and I can sit back and eat popcorn while the world crashes and burns. And boy, there was a lot of "drama-worthy" content in the metal world in the last few weeks...

Sirenia change singers (again)




It seems like they do that on a regular basis, but I actually grew accustomed to Ailyn. There aren't any news on what she will do now, but I think she will try to stay in the metal world. If she ever grows bored with snapchat filters and posting pictures of her hugging her dog, that is. 
She also stated, that leaving the band was not her decision. That earns this news some drama credit.
Meanwhile, Sirenia have announced their new singer, her name is Emmanuelle Zoldan and she has been a part of the Sirenia choir since 13 years. You can actually hear her sing in the song "First we take Manhattan" (I'm excited! This is one of my favorite songs from Sirenia :D)



Alissa White-Gluz has a solo project 



My drama detectors went off when I saw click-baity titles like "Alissa is now solo". Sorry guys (and girls), but she's still with Doyle as it seems, but she now has her own solo project, called ALISSA. Which means, she is of course still the lady on the mic in Arch Enemy, but now she has another project to channel all her creative energy into. I'm really excited for this, even though there is no drama. Or almost no drama, when some people asked her about her old band, The Agonist, in the comments on facebook, she gave a very direct reply, something along the lines of 'these people have no place in her life anymore'. Oh, the drama! :D  


Floor Jansen is pregnant

Floor and Hannes van Dahl (Sabaton) are expecting a baby! Congratulations! Now, that of course is not drama in itself, but one might find it a little cringe-worthy, that Tuomas actually gave her permission to become pregnant. Or so it reads 
Of course, that will make Nightwish (and ReVamp)-Fans cry a little, because that also means that Nightwish will be taking a break before we get to hear new material or see them live again, after they've wrapped up this year's touring schedule. 


Fenriz from Darkthrone is now a politician

I find this so funny, because I live in Austria. We don't have a president right now because we are incapable of electing one. True story. We have tried it once, no candidate got enough votes, we tried it a second time, it was almost 50:50, but one candidate made it. The loser wasn't happy and brought in an appeal of the election to the high court because of some "irregularities" in the procedure of counting the votes. The high court decided that the election has to be done again. It should take place on 2nd of October. Now it won't, because we aren't even capable of manufacturing envelopes. True story. Our envelopes open themselves because their glue sucks. Maybe we will try to vote again on December 4th. Maybe we won't, because we are just incompetent.
Not in Norway. There, people can be elected against their will. This happened to Fenriz from Darkthrone. He actually had posted a picture of him with his cat and asked people to NOT vote for him, because he actually didn't want the job of being part of the neighborhood council. Cute. But I'm sorry, Fenriz, if you post a picture with a motherfucking CAT, people will love you. They will make you their president if you don't stop posting pictures of you with CATS. Because CATS. 
CATS.

So I guess this is all the official band drama I can share with you (I also love the unofficial stuff, but I can't share that on the blog, because I'm a nice person and don't want to get in trouble). 

Freitag, 16. September 2016

Beautiful things did happen here...


So yesterday I went to a concert and was so inspired, I wanted to start blogging again. And here I am. Strange things happened on this blog.
And strange things usually happen in Bratislava, were I was yesterday.

I don't know how to start. So I guess I'll just type until something makes sense.
We went to see Novembre, Isole, Shores of Null and April Weeps in Bratislava, Club Randall. I live in Vienna, so Bratislava is only an hour away. I've been to so many concerts there, I would find the way to the club in my sleep ;) I actually once went to Bratislava with my parents as a typical tourist and everything looked so different in daylight! 
And the Club Randall and the MMC almost feel like home to me. And the food! 

Yesterday's concert was the first one of many to come this fall. I actually worked though all of summer without a break bigger than three days to be able to afford all those crazy adventures! 
I wasn't too excited about all the bands, honestly. I went mainly to have a nice time with friends.
When we arrived, the first band, April Weeps, were already playing. First I thought "Oh, another female fronted band trying to be...wait!" Because they were actually really good. I was blown away within two songs. So much fun, such good vibes! 

 
The other bands also did a great job, but for me, the local support stayed the best of the night ;)
The weather was also great, so we were sitting outside and ate pizza in between sets. I eat that pizza every time I'm there, because there's a nice little place just on the other side of the street from the club. I'm 99% sure that's also the catering bands get when they play there. At least the pizza box did look familiar to me ;)
Later I ran into Marta from April Weeps in the washroom. I don't want to brag, but things like these happen all the time. But hey, band people are just normal people too, right? I talked to her briefly and then bought their CD (I had to ask her first because they didn't have it at the merch table).

Anyway, this is just a little love letter to my favorite city in the world and me being totally excited about having discovered a great band :) Please support April Weeps on their Bandcamp and if you get the chance, go to Bratislava!