Smart Plan Paragraphs- Correction

 My Master Plan

In order to do well on the vocabulary and grammar section of the first progress check and avoid the mistakes I usually tend to make, I have come up with what I think is a smart plan. Since we need to be able to define words, I will have a close look at the definitions in the glossary, which was uploaded to the Internet by our teachers. The glossary also offers valuable information like frequently made mistakes, synonyms or idioms. This information can be especially important for the progress check, which means I’ll try to keep it in mind. Furthermore, I’ll hopefully avoid grammatical mistakes concerning tenses by doing the exercises in my grammar books. My grammar books do not only offer good exercises but also very good explanations from which I gathered the most important points and wrote them down on an extra sheet to avoid confusion. In the end, I hope I’ll be an expert on tenses and vocabulary, so that I’ll not only pass the exam but also receive a good mark.

Keep in mind:

• Don't use "especially" at the beginning of a sentence
• instead of repeating words, use synonyms  => especially = in particular or particularly

The Story of Ireland: Homework Correction

The Story of Irelad

The most fascinating aspect of Irish culture that I learned about by watching the Story of Ireland was the fact that Irish history is marked by a constant fight against oppression. In the 17. century, King James, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, sent Protestant English settlers to Ulster in order to colonize the mostly Christian Ireland.  The colonization as well as the increasing immigration of Scots caused an uprising among the Irish people. The Irish had to work for the English settlers on plantations and the living conditions were very bad, which amplified the Irish desire to regain control over their own country and re-establish Christianity as the main religion.  Religious conflicts and power struggles affected not only Ireland but all of Europe. That is why countries like Spain or France were inclined to ally with the Gaelic revolutionists against the Protestant English crown. Nonetheless, for a very long time English forces were able to repress the Irish uprising by means of bloodshed and terror. Even decades after this violent period of Gaelic history it still has a tremendous effect on the Irish people and their relations to England; therefore, doing research on this particular aspect of Irish history was highly interesting.

Word count: 185

Keep in mind:

• don't use imprecise expressions (more than dramatic => very bad) 
• King James, King of England.... (King=> refers to King James, who was a concrete person with a concrete title "King") BUT: kings were fighting all over Europe => not referring to ONE specific king
• relations or relationship  (not relation)
• cause an uprising (needs article!)

Christmas in Tirol

Christmas time is over now, so I finally have time to tell you guys about my time here in Tirol. When I arrived here,  I first had to get used to living in Tirol again. : D. Here I can use cars to get from point A to point B (while in Graz I have to walk), I'm living in a house with 2 other people so I can't decide on my own when I want to have dinner and what I want to have for dinner and I have a television in my room which can be distracting when I try to study :P.  Ok, maybe I'm a little exaggerating... actually I got used to it quite fast.
Still, I couldn't say that the first days were relaxing. Christmas was on its way and so the house had to be tidied up and decorated. It was even more work because we had  7 people over at our house for Christmas' eve. So we had to prepare dinner for 10 people..which meant a lot of washing, cutting, stiring etc. Luckily, on the 24th at about 7 pm the work came to an end and we could (more or less) relax and sit together with our family. We still had to serve food and drinks etc, which meant standing up and sitting down by turns (and not forgetting to eat). Once dinner was over, we finally were REALLY able to fully enjoy. My Grandad started telling stories about his childhood during WW2 and the way they celebrated Christmas back then. They were mostly funny stories, which made us laugh but sometimes we were shocked by the described poverty. Then, we went on to singing songs. Since one half of our guests (my aunt and cousins) are American, we sang a mixture of German and American Christmas songs. Last year some of us had the excuse that they didn't know the lyrics, so this year we decided to print them out for everyone. So nobody had an excuse anymore, which meant that eeeevery single one of us had to sing :P (although my grandparents had problems reading the English lyrics and pronouncing the English words- since they never learned English). We celebrated together until about 1 or 2 am. However, my grandparents left earlier because they wanted to go to church.
The following 2 days could be described as "from slap-up meal 1 to slap-up meal 2". haha.
On the first day we visited my grandparents. There we had lunch, dinner and something between lunch and dinner :D. In the end, we were all so full that we swore to never eat anything again.
On day 2 we somehow forgot our promise, and ate a lot...again :D. We went to visit my aunt and my other grandmother, watched a movie and played games together.

We basically celebrate like this every year, which made it somehow to a tradition. I truly enjoyed this time with my family..and those get-togethers with my family are the exact reason why I love Christmas so much.