Homework correction: Why I love cooking

Since I want to improve and lift my English up to a higher level, I'll try to correct even the tiniest mistakes in my homework. So here we go with the original version first:

Ever since I moved to Graz, I started to love cooking. Whereas at home I always had someone who cooked for me, in Graz I myself had to be responsible for having a balanced diet. The only way to eat healthily is by cooking your own meals, instead of eating instant meals. First, having to cook after my college classes was rather exhausting, but after some time I figured out that there is more to it than just preventing yourself from starving. Frequently cooking with my flat mate Julia showed me how satisfying it is to see the results of your work and dedication. Always having our cook books with us, we soon started to try out more demanding meals. The more challenging the meals were, the more I had the feeling that cooking offered distraction from everyday life. Trying to make the perfect meal, I didn't have much time to worry about grades or tests. Cooking, if done right and with the right person, is the perfect way of being self-responsible, freeing your head, and enjoying the best meals.

According to my teacher, the underlined (in this case the red marked) mistakes are the serious mistakes. The sentences I underlined are not necessarily completely wrong but could have been expressed more nicely. So I'll try to improve this version by using Pons, vocabulary.com, Glowbe, and my teacher's advice.

• Ever since,... + present perfect => usually we use a perfect tense after "ever since".
  Correction: Ever since I moved to Graz, I've become passionate about cooking.
• I myself = colloquial English + shouldn't be used in writing.
  Correction: Whereas at home I always had someone who cooked for me, in Graz I suddenly was the one responsible for having a balanced diet.
• Correction: The only way to eath healthily is to make your own meals.
• First => only used when listing multiple things...I should have used AT first
• Correction: With our cookbooks open, we began to try out more demanding meals.
• Correction The more challenging the meals became, the more I felt that cooking was the perfect distraction..
• Become independant=> nicer construction; free your head => is german!; don't use the most obvious words... try to find synonyms =>relish instead of enjoy
  Correction: is the perfect way to become independant, free your mind, and relish the best meals. 

Stuffed Zucchini :)

Like pretty much every weekend my friend Julia and I decided to make lunch together. As the both of us had a lot of Zucchini in our fridge, we decided to use them as our main ingredients. The meal was delicious!
Since PC1 is coming up and we should improve in giving instructions and reading/writing recipes, I thought I'd give it a go and write a blog post on how to cook stuffed Zucchini. Of course you are welcome to try out our recipe. =)

Ingredients: 

3 Zucchini
1 slice of meat (can be any kind of meat- we used a chicken fillet)
5-6 potatoes (depending on size)
1/2 bulb of onion
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 1/2 tablespoons of crème fraîche
meltable cheese
salt
any other kinds of seasonings (e.g. oregano)

Wash and peel the Zucchini, cut them into halves and scoop out the pith. Put the pith into a frying pan and set the Zucchini aside. Wash, peel and chop the potatoes into middle-sized pieces and add them to the pith. Peel and cut the Onion into halves. Chop one half of the onion coarsely and put it into the pan. Slice the meat into small pieces and add it to the mass in the pan. Add créme fraîche, tomato paste, any kinds of seasonings and salt it to taste. Stir the mass until smooth. Fry it until the poatoes as well as the meat is done. Chop up some cheese and add half of it to the frying pan. Let the cheese dissolve over low heat.
Then put the mass with a teaspoon onto the Zucchini. Top them with coarsely-chopped cheese. Situate the Zucchini on a baking tray and roast them at 200°C for about 20 minutes in the oven.
When the Zucchini and the topping are slightly browned, serve immediately

Bon appétit! :)

An adventurous day in the South of Styria

 Wildon

Yesterday my friends and I felt the need to leave Graz for half a day and go see something completely new. Following advice of my flat mates, we decided to take a train to Wildon, a small town near Leibnitz. The town surrounds the "Schloßberg"...yes, same name as the hill here in Graz. On the top of the "Wildoner Schloßberg" are super old ruins. They are the remains of castles built in the 13th century. Although we thought it was such a cool thing to see, the Wildoner decided not to use it to attract tourists. So the path up there is not really a path. You can only guess where to go and after a while it seemed like we chose wrongly. So we were standing there, trees everywhere, not knowing where to go. So we chose the fastest way up there, which basically means we climbed to the top. There were piles of leaves on the ground, which prevented us from having a good grip and caused our feed to lose easily. We had to make use of the utensils the forest offered- trees, roots, and stones (which were covered with gossamers). After having fought our way up to the ruins and getting a first glimpse of what there was to see, we were mesmerized. Huge walls of stones covered with leaves and parts of trees marked the landscape. We used the opportunity to take some really cool pictures.




On our way up and down we got to see a chamois. We'd never seen such an animal from this close, so we  were all so impressed that we couldn't stop taking pictures. The interesting thing was that the animal didn't even seem to bother. It just stood there, looking at us. On the way down we also saw some deer. But they were far to scared to come closer. Instead they jumped up the hill...the exact way we used beforehand. It seemed slightly unfair that we had to work so hard to get up there, while it took them just a few jumps to reach the top. Well, well..that's nature.
Having arrived back in town, we decided that we deserved a delicious meal. So we went to a restaurant and enjoyed pizza. Since we had walked some hours (I think it was 3-4) wthout any breakes, we were all rather exhausted afterwards.
But it was definetely worth it. My 5 friends and I had an aaawesome trip, and even got to see something new.







(Unfortunately : P) we saw this warning sign far too late. In our opinion, however, there was nothing dangerous about visiting the ruins. They looked pretty solid.

Sun and Weirdos on Schlossberg

We've been having beautiful weather the last couple of days which is why I couldn't just stay inside and study but had the desire to go out and get a nice tan. So my friends and I set out for Schlossberg. "Schloss" means castle in English while "berg" stands for mountain. As a Tyrolean, I wouldn't really define it as a mountain though...I'd say it's more like a hill. The rest of Austria might think differently about it : P.
From the top of the Schlossberg you can see the beautiful scenery of Graz. Nice old buildings with red roofs, old churches and lots of toursists mark the landscape. On the especially beautiful days when the sun shines down on the city, everyone feels this special atmosphere. Not only cute (or not so cute) little animals like salamanders, bees or butterflies enjoy the sun. People, old as well as young, leave their busy everyday lifes behind to go out, relax, and take in the first few sunrays of spring. On these days you feel the people's anticipation of the nearing summer particularly strong.
On one side of the hill are stairs that you can use to get to the top, while on the other side there's a meandering path. As walking up the stairs is faster, we decided to walk up there. Since we didn't expect it to be so hot and therfore wore warm clothes, we were pretty soon perspiring and out of breath. However, once we reached the top of the mountain, we realized that it was definitely worth the exhaustion. We lied down in a nice area of green grass and enjoyed the sun.
Aaaand: we even decided to only speak English!    (man, we are soooo nerdy : D) - but it gave us the opportunity to go over some vocab we talked about in class, like "colander".

Now the part you were all waiting for: the WEIRDO

As we were lying there, some guy in his 50s came up and stood behind one of my friends. I opened my eyes, didn't recognize him, looked over to my friend Helene and realized that she didn't know this guy either. For about 5 minutes he just stood there and said nothing. We were like: "uhm....ok?!" and then all of a sudden he just sat down between the two of us. He started asking Helene questions like where she was from, what she was studying etc., while he started to open the suitcase he carried with him. We thought he might have drugs in it, but in fact it was some kind of a weird instrument. He took it out, played on it for like two seconds, put it back in an stared at us. We had nooo clue what this guy wanted and to be honest we had no intention whatsover to talk to him. So I stood up saying: "Girls, didn't we want to get some ice cream?". Instead of the girls, the guy answered: "well, you could bring me one too". I shook my head, told him that we were about to go back home, took my stuff and hoped for the girls to do the same. Luckily, the girls also just wanted to get rid of him and got their stuff together as well. Finally, the guy left. Two of the girls stayed and enjoyed the rest of the day up there, while Helene and I took what we had said very seriously and got some delicious ice cream:P.

Review on my blogging and what I can improve

Today in class we had to look at various blog posts of people who did a really good job last semester. The assignment for this week is to find out what I could've done better and what I will do better in the future. What I really like about some of the blogs is that the way the posts are written attracts your attention from the get-go. The bloggers write vivaciously and give you the feeling that you are at the places they describe. By painting pictures with words, they give you insight into their own world (no matter how crazy it might be : D.. jk). It gives you the opportunity to get to know the writer, his hobbies, his values.Very often you sit in front of the computer and think: "omg..I wanna go there" or "omg...I wanna do this". So the purpose of their blogs is not only to get a good grade. It's about passion. It's about their love of words, of languages, of cultures, of every means of communication. It's about opening the doors to your own world and experiences to others. So that other can benefit from what they read. I think this is a big part of the reason why those blogs were so successful.
Of course good grammar and a nice layout count as well. But this all comes automatically if you're just passionate enough.

 

Last semester I tried to write only about the things I'm truly interested in...the things I get excited about. But when I browsed through the blogs of my classmates and compared it to my own, I sometimes missed more nice pictures and better organization in my own blog. Also, I was not so fond of my layout and background image so I immediately changed that. I hope that my blog will live up to all of your expecations and give you the opportunity to learn something new. Because that's what blogging is all about, right?

New term...new challenges =)

Hey everyone!

After a whole month semester break in Tyrol, I'm back in Graz and ready to take on even more challenges. A couple of days ago I had my first Russian class and I can already tell you this: it's gonna be a hell of a lot work this semester.
The teachers already started giving us vocabulary lists that we should study as soon as possible, since we're gonna have a "surprise test"every other week or so. *Yaaay*...
*sarcasm off*
Ok, I'm gonna stop whining now because seriously: that's the way to truly learn a language. I appreciate that all of our teachers try to push us to our limits because without their threats about tests and failing classes I wouldn't study so hard. Besides, they really try to tell us about tests etc in the nicest way possible.
I hope you will enjoy reading my blog throughout the semester...I will again try to make it worth your while.

Oh and one more thing: Since I really believe that writing blog posts can help you with any of your languages, I set up a Russian blog. So if you speak Russian feel free to visit http://evasrussischblog.blogspot.co.at/