My students' podcast

Hooray! It happened. For a long time I have been encouraging my students to steer their young energy into some creative field. As a task for my verbal communication class the students of the Translation and Interpreting School had to prepare podcasts, improving their speaking skills and seeing for themselves what they can do if they really apply themselves, not only speaking about (let's admit it) oftentimes fake topics in class reports, but leaving a more tangible trace, something others will appreciate, something less volatile than just a word breathed out. Here is the first video (!) podcast they made, and I am so happy for them I cannot keep away from sharing it with the world)) It is a trifle edited from the original version to protect some sensitive information like the phone number of the stars (who's interested may contact me and we will think whether to give you the number or not:)

Burden of the years

Had listening training with the students and there was a mentioning of an LP record. Half-jokingly I decided to explain the concept to them, asking who knew what an LP is, and suddenly my playful mood churned into a chilly deafeningly silent emptyness when _NO_BODY_ could say what it was - the closest we got to was an audio tape. I mean, man, it was just about yesterday, I can still actually feel the sensation of holding a vinyl disc and dusting it off carefully with a special felt brush... Where is it all going to? When did it go? I am not terribly old, I remember, I re-live, I feel, I can breathe of how cool it was to get a new LP and how hip it was to put it on; and the hands remember the sacred sequence of movements when you raise the cover, unite the male power of the machine with the prone femininity of a record, give it a brisk turn with a finger, turn on the switch releasing the ever-present circular motion the turntable had always been pregnant with, feeling how the intensity of the power translates through the fingers into your whole body in anticipation of those a little cracky waves and streams and soundfalls of energy, and raise the needled spear from its cradle, gently lowering it onto the running magic burrows... What, nobody experiences it anymore - not even in the dusty nooks of the memory? Of the tales from the past? Of a not-so-far-away past, - for I still can call up those emotions of mine that the vinyl witnessed, they are still sparkling with the dew of actuality, which dried up a trifle, but is still humid to the touch of the soul.
One girl said she had never in her life seen or touched a vinyl disc. Another one had a flash or recognition from a movie. I mean, wait a second, I see them as more or less _my_ crowd, I am still in the same league with them if you know what I mean, - but how different our sensations of the world are, the memory lanes on the maps of our lives are not merging. And for them the buildings of consequences and understanding erected on our lanes may be walked in but can hardly ever become having been lived in. And then I felt that we are strangers to them. To a certain degree.

Alpha delta bravo

My translation department students are having their monthy tests. As usual with the majority of the Chinese tests multiple choice is the favorite. I have to grade 50+50 papers with tons of questions and boringly limited room for imagination, only four letters of the alphabet thrown about and an answersheet to consult... The mind goes dull after paper number 3. Mistakes are of course avoidable - with great strain - but with the eyes jumping from the answer sheet to the students' papers and back it is such an excruciating job.

I wish somebody were here to read the answers to me so that I at least didn't have to look away from the test paper.... Eureka! I am my own reader! Here we go - record the answers to the computer's hard drive and play them as we check the papers!

But after a while it's getting dull again and I have doubts as to whether it was a "D" or a "B" just now, and the recording goes on, and I lose the tempo... I gotta do something or else...

The human genius did not stand by leisurely, and technically speaking for any cunning nut we can invent a big screw with a tricky threading :) What people do in such situations so as not to confuse short sound-waves? Right! Military phonetic alphabet! And a couple of minutes later from my open window and into the warm subtropical evening there drifted short Morse-code-like sentences "bravo - delta - delta - alpha - bravo - charlie...". The work went faster and my mind had some room for unrelated thoughts, - something like what if someone overhears me, and draws a long-fetched conclusion of me sending a coded message out. Darn! And I am just checking papers.

'Bravo-charlie-alpha-delta..." streamed away for about an hour. I was just checking the tests...

Psycho-Liguntiscial

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetant tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wihtuot it bnieg a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig, huh?

Just to make you smile - Steffi