29.03.2014

recently read.

E.



























Howl by Allen Ginsberg


(Listen to Allen Ginsberg reading this poem here x. It's especially wonderful if you read the poem out loud alongside him.)


Dead Poets Society by N.H. Kleinbaum



»Lads, there is a great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular. As Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference.“«


Winter Journal by Paul Auster



»You seldom think about them (scars), but whenever you do, you understand that they are marks of life, that the assorted jagged lines etched into the skin of your face are letters from the secret alphabet that tells the story of who you are, for each scar is the trace of a healed wound, and each wound was caused by an unexpected collision with the world. (...) Contingent facts are opposed to necessary facts, and the realization as you look into the mirror this morning that all life is contingent, except for the one necessary fact that sooner or later it will come to an end.«

»We are all aliens to ourselves, and if we have any sense of who we are, it is only because we live inside the eyes of others.«

»... and for all these years you have been living inside the long, uninterrupted conversation that started the day you met.«

»Writing begins in the body, it is the music of the body, and even if the words have meaning, can sometimes have meaning, the music of the words is where the meanings begin.«


Fuck you/Underground Gedichte


















































(poem above: 4:2:59 Take I by Philip Whalen)


Ein neuer Morgen by Gerhard Roth



»Man warf mir vor, ich sei anders geworden, und da ich mich nicht mehr verstellte, verachtete ich die Menschen die mir das vorwarfen. Sie verstellten sich und erwarteten Verstellung. Ich aber verachtete nun die Anpassung so sehr, daß ich nur noch mit Menschen sprechen wollte, die sich preisgaben, weil ich mich selbst preisgeben wollte. Ich war hin und her gerissen zwischen mir selbst und oft unglücklich.«

»Ich glaube die Menschen ermessen gar nicht, mit welcher Niedertracht sie sich gegenseitig erpressen und mit welcher Unerbitterlichkeit sie einander angst machen.«


Schlaflose Tage by Jurek Becker



»In Wirklichkeit quält es mich ja nicht, dass die Zahl der mir verbleibenden Tage ständig abnimmt, sondern dass ich diese Jahre, wenn nichts Entscheidendes passiert, auf eine so belanglose Weise verbringen werde. Obwohl ich es mir nie eingestanden habe, ist mein bisheriges Leben verlaufen, als käme das eigentlich Wichtige erst noch.«


Kaputt in Hollywood, Fuck Machine by Charles Bukowski




























Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert




»Das Leben der anderen, mochte es auch noch so flach sein, enthielt doch wenigstens die Möglichkeit einer Veränderung. Ein winziger Zufall hatte oft die unabsehbarsten Folgen und konnte neue Wendungen bringen. (...) Die Zukunft war wie ein langer finsterer Gang, dessen Ende sich eine festverschlossene Tür befand.«

28.03.2014

vienna coffee date.

V.



Yesterday evening, after I had finished my work at the museum, me and my art history colleagues met up at a nice cafe in Vienna with our seminar professor who had initiated our little coffee date. When he first proposed the idea, we were all like "What? Why? Oh, to talk about our bachelor thesis grades?" And he was like: "What? No. Just .. for fun!" And then there was this long silence and confused faces staring at each other, so he went: "Oh, but if you don't want to, we don't have to ..!" And we were like: "Oh no we would love to, don't get us wrong!!"
Indeed, the sad truth is that the last thing an art history (and not only art history, I'm sure) student would expect to hear from a professor is the offer of getting to know each other better outside university. Why would anyone actually be interested in that, we thought, so our professor's lovely proposal was immediately misinterpreted but then, of course, happily accepted. At University of Vienna, I believe, something like that is quite uncommon,- a professor making time for his students in his private life to talk about anything and everything,- just like that, you know. We were really smitten with him anyway but this initiative made me admire him even more.
(Btw,- I don't usually carry my camera around at work, I just had to take a few pictures of the current exhibition as a project I'm working on for my admission exam at a photography college in Vienna! So that's why there's a selfie of me in the MUMOK elevator. I just had to go for it. :) ) - And speaking of selfies at work, - the positive feedback on the following photo that ment to mainly depict my affection for coffee, has once again reassured me that my newest shoe-purchase was definitely one of the smartest ideas I had in months. So thanks to you F21, thank you for making my feet look good.


Later that day, as I was walking around the city towards the coffee house I once again realized how much I love Vienna. It is such a beautiful and fascinating city filled with incredible architecture. You simply gotta love it.

I didn't take any pictures from inside the coffee house though, as I didn't want to annoy my colleagues with the endless clicking of my camera. We really had a fantastic and fun time and I hope to see these wonderful people again soon. :)

27.03.2014

let's go to the mall.

V.
Hey guys! :) As I had told you in the latest post, I spent my whole day at IKEA yesterday morning and later went to check out some other stores as well. Remember when I said I wasn't gonna buy anything and I don't really have a lot of money to spend right now .. well .. only one of those statements is true. And I'm pretty sure you can guess which one.
At IKEA, I mainly bought frames for my boyfriend's office, a notebook with supercute post-its .. 

.. a tray and some sweets (of course)! How could I possibly resist? 
Well .. as soon as I had placed the sweet treats on the tray though, I had attracted the attention of a fluffy friend of mine .. who once AGAIN ..

.. stole my IKEA hazelnut chocolate bar!! Can you believe it? Well.. what you're gonna do .. 

After mission frame-purchase was completed, I was actually planning on going home (in order to spare myself the monthly drama of opening the visa envelope and going "What? When the hell did I ever go to Lush that month?! .. Oh wait .. Right." So I figured, it would be best to just take the tram home .. HOWEVER .. that didn't happen. You wouldn't have guessed, right? It was totally not obvious.

I mainly went to Primark,- which, I have to say, I don't feel good about. I always get the worst feeling entering a store like that, where skirts, t-shirts and shoes are in the same price category as ice cream, apples and chewing gum. It's just ridiculous. At these low prices, how can any factory worker even make an eighth of a decent payment these days? It's really disturbing, I must say. I've already thought about the topic child labour and poor working conditions a lot and just checking the internet reassures me, that there's barely one (fashion) store out there that hasn't had a record of child labour or exploitation of factory workers.
Naturally, Primark has stated  that they have stopped using Indian suppliers that use slave labour. However, it remains to be seen whether this is actually true, or whether they have just moved the problem elsewhere. The whole thing really makes me angry, especially since I freakin love Primark and the stuff there's just awesome. So now, here's my Primark haul:

I got 2 new bags:

A striped cropped shirt:

A white long blouse:

A black long skirt: 

A phone/card holder case:


Some socks:


And some darn cute wrapping paper:


Alrighty. I didn't go anywhere else except KIKO,- which is a make-up brand from Milan that I really love. I got the following items:








Alright and that was it! :) I was truly exhausted when I came home yesterday and went straight to bed and ate tons of butter toast while laughing about an episode of Home Improvement,- but I have to say, I really enjoyed my shopping day. Ha, that rimes!

26.03.2014

waiting for mr. chimney.

V.

Oh yes. Today is one of those - "getting up really early in the morning to do absolutely nothing but sit around and wait" - kind of days, or as I like to call it: Kehrtag. Translation: Kehrtag is the one day of the year where the chimney sweep pays the Austrian population a visit to check their chimneys, boilers and stuff. And today it's our building's turn. Even though getting up at 6:40am is like .. one of the biggest challenges for me, -(I'm a student, after all), - there definitely are some advantages, I really must say. First of all, you've got more hours to fill your day with. I for example have seized the opportunity of getting up real early to actually make myself some breakfast (which I never do) which consisted of a soft-boiled egg, toast and tea. I just realized how much I adore eggs, especially when they're still runny..! Lovely!

Now I am actually still waiting for my hot date in black uniform to come, so I figured, why not take pictures of my apartment in the meantime and post them on Esthoria .. 





Since I don't have to work today, I decided to spend my day at IKEA, after Mr. chimney sweep has checked my apartment. Most likely, I will also pay a visit to the shopping mall right next to it, so beware .. there'll probably be a little shopping haul coming up in the next post. I'm not really able to spend a lot of money at the moment, so I'd probably better stay away from Zara and co. but I figured .. a quick look never hurt anybody .. :)



Alright guys, so I'll hopefully be able to be on my way to furniture paradise soon and I really hope that you have a lovely day as well! :)

25.03.2014

birthday party.

V.


Hey guys!! :) 
First things first: I just realized that the last post that we published is about 2 weeks old and I honestly didn't even recognize how fast time flew by. So sorry for not providing you with new, highly anticipated - (I'm sure )-, Esthoria stories! :) So let's get started right away by telling you how Esther and I had spent the last Saturday night.
As you might already know, Esther and I are part of a wonderful group of old friends that come together 5-6 times a year to celebrate each other's birthday. Mostly we combine birthdays when two of us celebrate our birthday in the same month. Nina and I, for example, use to celebrate at her home, however this time we got to stay at my family's house and we had a lovely day filled with delicious food, presents and much laughter of course. As we don't see each other as often as we'd like, we always have a blast when we reunite and there simply are too many new stories to tell, so it's hard to pass on all the information in just one evening. Unfortunately though, this time, Lisa and Julia couldn't be there due to their current studies abroad in Copenhagen.

 


As soon as everyone had arrived we gathered around the dining table and couldn't wait to indulge in our traditional afternoon cake. 


To give you a little glimpse at our menu - we started out with my mom's tasty nutella cake,- which in our group is also called "orgasm cake", due to the heavy breathing and groaning that takes place during the eating-process. Haha! :) It's just so delicious!!  .. Yes, we're silly and we know it!





Here's Lisa M. giving me an angry look because of my seemingly endless and annoying photo-documentation of the day.
 





Here's my dad trying to escape my all-seeing camera lense. He didn't succeed though, so he gave in and waved.

After our little coffee klatch we went back up to my room to exchange gifts. 


As usual, I wished for my favourite perfume - however there were a few other sweets gifts given to me as well, which totally suprised me! Nina got a horse-print bagpack, a book, a game and a cheesecake as well as a personalized horse-card (it's her own horse that decorates the cover). :) 


I as well got an incredibly cool card which was made by Esther with the help of her dad who's a typographer. I was so in awe of it and immediately fell in love with it (while chewing my hair, it seems)! 



Later that evening we went back downstairs and had some delicious mini-quiches filled with leek and bacon, spinach and salmon and some others with ham.




And afterwards we indulged in some chocolate-dipped strawberries! All of the listed specialties were created by my mom,- so THANKS AGAIN mum, as always, you did a wonderful job! :)

After dinner we headed back up to my room and the feast, of course, continued. 


 (This is me doing a shocked "we bought too much candy" - look)


We also got to hang out with Julia via Skype and she got to show us the preparation of her dinner.


Oh and - let me introduce to you - ROMUALD. One of the loves of my life. He wanted to skype with Julia as well.



Shortly before midnight everyone went home and I started cleaning up the room while happily grinning at the lovely presents I got from my even lovlier friends! I know that's cheesy but it's true! I really love my friends and I hope that you do too! :) 

PS: We're planning to do a little video of the clips we recorded that day too, so stay tuned!