Good Bye New York

Good bye New York,
it's hard to find the words to describe the incredible six months I had with you. I'm going to miss this time, I'm going to miss you.
I'm going to miss your train station, big and impressive with its beautiful ceiling and the hectic people not noticing it as they are rushing through. I will miss the train rides to this station, going through the Bronx whose bad reputation is not justified in my eyes. Looking out of the window with music in my ears always made my thoughts fade away and imagine stories, that would never happen.
I'm going to miss your busy streets, that seem so unreal if you take a moment to stop and sit down to watch people running past you. Meanwhile, this run can capture you, you can become part of the big flowing mass that is taking you with it, form one end of Manhattan to the other one. I'm going to miss your diversity I experienced while walking up and down on you. Different boroughs, different neighborhoods, different atmospheres and everything so close together on the other hand. I'm also going to miss your dimensions. I'm going to miss your sky scrapers, your park in the size of 460 soccer fields, your innumerable amount of pittoresque restaurants, patisseries, cafes, clubs and bars and Delis. I'm going to miss those especially as there is nothing comparable to these to be found in Germany. I'm also going to miss your adorable places like SoHo, especially later in the afternoon when the sun is about to go down and you walk through the streets full of vintage shops and unique stores. I'm going to miss the charm of your your brownstones and the elaborately decorated churches popping up out of nowhere in the middle of high buildings and masses of people. I'm definitely going to miss your diversity of things to do - no matter what, always having the possibility to drive to Manhattan and do something fun or interesting was just awesome.
There are so many things I'm going to miss about you, the list is endless and no blog would provide enough space for all of them...
Good bye New York

The 25th Hour

"Novels like The 25th Hour don't fall out of trees every day. The tone is dare and intense; it's elegant style is cut on the raw side; and the characters come from places we're all been"

- The New York Times -

I think this quote reflects the atmosphere in the book quite well. The 25th Hour tells a story about everyday life, which isn't supposed to mean that it's about everyones every day life. But it shows the world how it is, shows it in all its facets:
It's shows the carelessness with which we take the good side of life for granted and how little we sometimes appreciate life when it's not causing any trouble. It also shows how rapidly this attitude can change when things change and you suddenly have to face essential questions in your life.
What is the sense of my life? How do I want to to go on? Where is this going to end?
The protagonist Monty in the book faces all these questions, he had everything - the good as well as the bad times. He knew how it feels to be on top, to be one of the richest and most famous people on the scene, to have everyone's respect and to get whatever he wanted. He also knew how it felt to crash down, when the whole world you relied on comes crashing down. In his case it is because he is caught dealing drugs and has to go to jail for seven years.
The book, as well as the film, show on the one hand how mindlessly people enjoy the luxury and advantages in life until they look deeper into them. In the story Monty started doing so after realizing his old life would be over and that during the next seven years he won't see anything of the city or environment he used to live in. He started reflecting on what he had never really paid attention to and started to realize how much he hated all these things. How much he hates for example the Korean Deli owners, the Pakistani taxi drivers, the snobs on Wall Street, the church with its priests that abuse their proteges. He hates all those kinds of people he always pretended to tolerate as it was expected from him. He even hates his friends with their bad habits whom he always accepted as friends. Now that he is facing the start of a new part of his life he starts being honest and has no restraints anymore to admit how much everything around him that he used to love is now annoying him.
These are all or partly things the reader/viewer recognizes himself (if he had been to New York). But there is also another aspect of recognition as mentioned in the quote by "places we've all been". It puts the places and situations in the book into categories. I think this is not supposed to mean that everyone has been at this one specific drug dealing hot spot, but that all over the world there are places like this and that you could absolutely rewrite the story with a different setting. This gives the reader/viewer a connection to the story and this is also what makes it so honest and close to reality.

Turkey

Located in Western Asia the Republic of Turkey as it is officially named is an Eurasian country that gained its independence in 1923 and set up its constitution in 1982. Since then it has been amended for five times. The Republic has been founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk the same year it declared its independence. 

As all republics it has the three branches Executive, Legislative and Judicial. 

The Executive consists of a president (chief of state), a prime minister (head of government) and a Council of Ministers (cabinet: Appointed by the president on the nomination of the prime minister).

The Legislative is represented by the Grand National Assembly which contains 550 members who are chosen by national elections at least every four years.

The Judicial is composed of the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation, Council of States and other courses.

Turkey has four main parties which have representatives in the Parliament:

AKP - Justice and Development Party (327 seats)

CHP - Republican People's Party (135 seats)

MHP - Nationalist Action Party (52 seats)

BDP - Peace and Democracy Party (29 seats)

Furthermore there are seven independents.

Every person in the about 74 million people containing population has the right to vote as the suffrage is given universally to every person of age 18 and older.

These 74 million people are living on a total area of 783 000 square km - which means the density is as low as 97 people/square km while in Germany for example it is 223 people/square km.

99% of these people are muslims, most of them sunni, while Christians, Bahai and jewish people share the remaining 1%. The two main ethnic groups are Turkish people (80%) on the one side and Kurdish ones (20%) on the other. These two groups are often involved in conflicts and are constantly fighting against each other as the Kurds feel suppressed and disrespected by the Turks. They pursue independence from the Turkish state - this conflict can be lead back to the time after the second world war where it developed. 

Tukey's capital city is Ankara though its largest city is Istanbul which is why most people often mistake it as the capital city. Other big and well-known cities are Antalya, Bursa and Izmir.

In opposition to the widespread assumption of Turkey as a economical rather weak country it has the worlds 15th largest GDP-PPP and the 17th largest GDP. It is one of the founding members of the OECD and the G-20 major economies. Between 1923 and 1983 the country mostly had a statist economical system with a lot of government planning and limitations over private sector participation and foreign trade issues. Then, in 1983 Prime Minister Turgut Özal initiated a series of reforms that changed the system from a stated, insulated one to a more private-sector, market-based model. This resulted in enormous economical growth, though there have been a few financial crises and setbacks relating to inflation, earthquakes and a lack of fiscal reforms.

Tourism


One of the most popular cities in Turkey to spend the vacations (at least for Europeans) is probably Istanbul. It is located directly at the Bosporus and has the proximity to Europe but already offers a completely different culture and world. It is divided into two parts while 25 of the 39 districts are on the European continent and 14 on the Asian one.

Some definite must-sees of this city are:
1. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (see the picture on the left). It is definitely one of the most impressive mosques of the world with its six high minarets and the blue interior mosaic all over the walls and ceiling. It has been finished in 1616 and is also called the Blue Mosque due to the just described interior design. Though its outer appearance is often mistaken as the reason for this name even the roof of the building itself and the minarets appears blue during several times of the day due to the light then.

2. A bazaar.

The Arasta Bazaar is Istanbul's last standing example of an open bazaar as they were popular in earlier centuries. This particular one exists since the 17th century and offers a great variety of handmade carpets and rugs, as well as various souvenirs made of gold, silver and natural stones.

The Grand Bazaar is probably one of Istanbul's most popular and most well known bazaars. It is described as one essential place to go to to get a sense of the city and to "blend yourself with it". In this huge indoor bazaar you can find antique deales as well as jewelers, bag makers, leather shops, carpet sellers and a great variety of further businesses. It is like a little own world separated from Istanbul and is the world's largest and oldest bazaar at the mean time. It has been built on Sultan Faith's order to provide income for the Hagia Sophia Museum (The Hagia Sophia Museum has originally been a church, then a mosque and functions now as a museum).

Additionally to these two main attractions every tourist should have seen (by which I mean a mosque and a bazaar which don't implicitly have to be those ones presented) Istanbul and Turkey in general offer a great variety of things to visit, many cultural treasures and a terrific cuisine that should definitely be tried!
Some of examples of the culinary diversity:

EF New York

Marymount College has been gone for a few years now, we all know that. But what replaced it? EF Language Schools renovated the Campus from scratch and made it one of their biggest centers for international education. 

EF - Education First - a company from Sweden that has locations all over the world provides English classes for international students in different language levels and also SPIN classes to choose individually. 

Students from all different continents come here to combine vacation with an improvement of their English skills. "I need English for a job later and I thought I can learn English and visit New York at the same time" explains Christian Müller, 18, from Germany, who has been participating in the program for four weeks. 

Most of the students come to this place in order to obtain a Cambridge or TOEFL certificate which they need for their studies or employment. Marget Hutmacher, 19, from Switzerland explains why she chose this language school over the others. "I like the language and I need the Cambridge Certificate in the future. I chose EF because my friends told me that it's good". 

"EF should provide a place to study, because the rooms are very small and there is no space to study" complains Risa Suzuki, 20, from Japan. But although there are still some aspects students are not totally satisfied with, they evaluate their overall experience as very positive. "Describing EF in 3 words? New friends, fun, freedom!" Suzuki adds. But also teachers like being at this place and having the job "For me EF is…energetic, diverse and unpredictable" Candice Halliday, old enough, from Pennsylvania says laughing. "I was looking for a language school that wasn't in Manhattan," she explains. "EF is a job that doesn't seem like a job, I'm hanging out with the world all day!"

This statement shows the school not only offers an educational aspect but a social one - people from all over the world, with the most interesting backgrounds come together and share a room in a group of four. The adolescents get to know the differences in cultures, politics and languages in the different countries. "I like to meet the new people here from different countries," states Hutmacher.

Students can also choose to live in a host family, although not all of them are happy with this choice "I don't like my host family and I will change in two weeks. They were kind of nice but it didn't work out - they just wanted my money." The school is still looking for new families who provide students a good insight into the American way of life and help them make their gap year a great time. So if you are interested in getting to know international young people that can totally enrich your everyday life by showing you their culture as well and becoming part of your family contact the school:

EF Language School

100 Marymount Avenue

10591 Tarrytown

phone#: 746-194-6459

email: info@efny.com

New Technologies

A Medical Break-Through


Researchers might have found a technique, which could symbolize a new dimension of examination. They are developing an invisible tattoo that can track the sodium and glucose level in your body through the help of an iPhone App. Which sounds like a scene of a Science Fiction movie could soon be part of people's everyday life: "I don't think there's any doubt that this sort of technology will catch on." says Jim Burns, head of drug and biomedical research and development.
Originally developed as an alternative to the finger-prick bloodletting, which is the standard technique of measuring the glucose level of diabetic people, this technology might go a lot further: Scientists hope to soon be able to measure dissolved gases such as nitrogen and oxygen, which indicate respiration and lung function.
But first how this is supposed to work after all:
In a first step, a solution containing different types of nano particles is injected into the skin. They will stay at the place they have been injected but will be invisible until an iPhone with the special App is placed on top of them so that they start fluorescing.
As soon as the particles are under the skin, they start to attract their target particles (in this case for example glucose) as they have the opposite charge. Once the target particles are taken up, the sensor molecules release ions in order to maintain an overall neutral charge. This in fact changes the fluorescence of the tattoo when it is hit by the light of the iPhone.
Finally, the more target molecules there are in the patient's body, the more molecules will bind to the sensor in order to neutralize the uneven charge and the more the fluorescence changes.
The special iPhone case that provides the special light could soon be an every day life product, as it would look like a normal case containing a nine-volt battery, a filter that fits over the iPhone's camera and three LED's. The iPhone will take a photo of the fluorescence to later transfer it to a computer program which can measure the amount of the target particles.
This might be the only disadvantage so far - the time it takes from making the molecules fluorescence until the result is finally there. And, of course, the technique is still in the state of testing to make sure it doesn't affect the patient's health.


Charging cell phones at Starbucks
Who doesn't know this problem - you're on the run and don't have the time to charge your cell phone anymore. Sure, you're just meeting for a coffee with your friend, but though your cell phone battery will be empty by then and you might miss the important call of your boss. So what to do - standing your friend up for one hour of charging your phone?
Starbucks seems to have found a solution for this problem. Due to the latest decision of the WWCC (World Wide Cell phone Corporation) all cell phones sold in 2012 will have the same charging port which will allow one universal charger for all of them. "On average, each person buys a new cell phone every two years, so that until 2014 everybody will have one of the new cell phones with the universal port" explains Andy Callaugher, chairman at WWCC. Furthermore he says "this will save us up to 2000 tons of electronic litter each year". This is because each time you bought a new cell phone in the past, you had to buy a new charger for it as well so that the old charger (as well as the old phone) have been trashed.

New York Times: The Lives They Lived

A first time for everything

Who ist the main subject of this article?
>> Black people who have been the first persons with their skin color in their professions

What details, anecdotes and accounts from other people illustrate the subject's personality?
>> The subject's personality, which in this case are the personalities of the black people mentioned in the article presents itself to me like this: These people were really brave, in the first moment I even had to laugh when I read that Eugene King was the first black milk delivery man - because it just sounds so absurd that there has been a time where there have been only white milk-delivery men, and that it has been a big step in the segregation's developement that there has been this first black one then. I think these people had very strong personalities and a lot of faith in the good in the world, a never ending hope that they can change somthing - otherwise they probably wouldn't have dared to apply for these jobs, as it was just unusual for black people to be seen in these professions. They never knew what they would have to deal with: Racism, discrimination, unequal treatment...but in the end they made it and changed our world through this.

What overall impression do you have of the person from the article? What gives you that impression?
>> As presented in the previous question I think of these people as very brave persons with a strong character. It's not only about fearing the discrimination they might have to face coming from coworkers or customers, but also the awareness of being "the first one". As it says in the article they we're highly aware that they were making history by accepting these jobs. And as this might not seem as a problem on the first sight, it could also frighten a person in my opinion: Do I want to be the one, the first one? Am I strong enough to take all the burdens this brings to me? Do I want to take the responsibilty to be the first one representing my race in this field?
I think these people should have had a lot of doubts and thoughts like this in their minds while applying for these jobs, but eitherway they did it - and for this, I take my hat off to them.

Why do you think this article was published in The New York Times?
>> I think even in our times racial segregation still has a big role in society. Even in these times where black people are mostly as integrated as white ones, have the same jobs, live in the same districts (disregarding ghettos with only African-Americans), apartheid is still part of our history that we have to deal with. We have to remember what happened to understand what happens now and to prevent our society from doing the same mistakes again. We already take it for granted that there is no difference made between black and white people, that we share our every day life with people of other races, but we have to be aware that this has not always been the case, that black people fouht a long fight to get where they are today. Furthermore there are unfortunately still people who don't accept people of other races, who discriminate them and in the worst case even use violence against them. Most of the time these people don't even know enough about black people, their culture, their history in this country and just blindly follow someone who drums these racist thoughts into their minds. To counter this, we have to create more awareness, which might be one of the reaons why The New York Times published this article in their series "The Lives They Lived"

If you were to write a more in-depth profile or obituary for the person which details from this article would you include? What additional information would you need to find out? Which people do you think you would interview to get this information?
>> What I think is really interesting about the article are the individual stories behind the persons. One of the last paragraphs of the article talks about Dorothy Allan, an African-American woman from Michigan who has been the first probation officer in her country. It is said that she had a sociology degree and heard of an opnening so that she decided to apply. She and her husband didn't really expect her to land the job, as he acceptance in a job was more about personal preference and your status in society than about skills and qualifications. Only this is already so striking to me, because today, even if you have a lot more opportunities if you have good contacts, you basically can be sure to succeed in your carreer when you have the right qualifications. But for Dorothy Allan this wasn't an insurance for her getting the job, it was probably more luck that made her succeed. Stories like this make the article more lively, they let you get emotionally involved and give you a better sense of what must have been going on in these peoples' minds.
To find out about more stories like this I would try to interview relatives of the deceased, maybe there are still wifes and husbands who can tell about their partners' lifes and how they got to become part of history. Maybe there are children, neighbors or old friends, jsut some people who can talk about the persons' situations, characters and how there life went on.