Consumed in 2016 Part II

23rd of January to 24th of February
 
Watched:
I didn't really watch a lot of movies in the past few weeks, because I started a re-watch of "Sons of Anarchy". Moreover, I finished the second season of "Penny Dreadful" which I didn't like as much as the first one, but it still looks gorgeous. I also re-watched "The Shining" and "John Wick". The first one is - in my opinion - overrated and just a bad movie, the second one is one of my favourite action movies.
"Cold Prey": A Norwegian slasher movie. I really like slashers - I like most formulaic genres since I really admire the craft of obeying to rules and conventions while still being entertaining - and this was a good one. The characters were so likeable that I was really sorry to see them die, so it wasn't as much fun as other slashers. However, the music for the end credits was "All My Friends Are Dead" by Turbonegro, so it must be an awesome movie!
"Gasland": A documentary that made me really angry about these people who just take whatever they want and destroy it.
"The Hateful Eight": It was a huge disappointment. Usually, I love Tarantino, especially "Jackie Brown" and "Reservoir Dogs", but this was just too long, boring and unneccessary violent. (Based on my watchlist, you might realize that I don't have any problem with violent films per se, but this was  unpleasant and unentertaining.)

Read:
"Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson: The first part of a trilogy. I have almost finished the second volume, but I won't write about it until I read the last book as well.

Again, no games.

Consumed in 2016 Part I

From now on, I will try to keep a list of things I read, watched, listened to or played. I have the strong hope that this will help me to keep track of how much I actually consume, because I often get the nagging fear that I miss too much, while I am at the same time pretty sure that I devour a huge amount of movies, books, TV shows and other media products. Moreover, I always want to compile a "Favourite.."-list at the end of the year, only to realize that I can't remember enough things to put on a list with ten or more items and still have enough titles left to keep some out. And what is the point of making a list when you simply put everything on it?

Anyway, here we go:

1st to 22nd of January 2016

Read:
James Anderson: "The Affair of the Mutilated Mink" (An entertaining, very traditional Whodunnit. Fun)
Kim Newman: "The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School" (I love Kim Newman. If I were queen, he would be my poet laureate. The book is wonderful, I hope he writes more about the adventures of the Moth Club.)  

Watched:
"Lovely Molly" (A movie that puzzled but neither frightened nor disturbed me. While looking for some discussions of the plot on the internet, I found the awesome "Dark Discussions"-podcast.)
"We're Still Here" (A good ghost story with some interesting ideas for a LARP-plot.)
"The Gallows" (Just terrible, I regret I paid for it because I worry that this might encourage them to make a sequal.)
"Horns" (Big disappointment.)
"Unknown User" (Exciting idea, very solid and sometimes actually scary.)
"Tales of Halloween" (So much fun!!!)
"Exists" (Bigfoot hunts teenagers who accidentally hit him with their car. Encourages me to drive much more carefully.)  
"Bone Tomahawk" (I really loved the first hour which was a straight Western. During the last thirty minutes I had a whisky to help stomaching the violence, but even that I liked.)

I didn't play any video games because somehow they do not really interest me at the moment, but as you can see I watched a lot of movies, which were almost exclusively horror movies. No TV shows either, only a couple of episodes of "The Mentalist", but there isn't anything interesting for me on Netflix at the moment. 

February is a stupid month

I didn't post anything last week because February is a very busy month at work. We had the "Open School-Day" yesterday, which ment that I had to be there until three in the afternoon. Later this month, there will be parent-teacher-day. Moreover, I have to write many reports about individual students who are in danger of failing if their grades don't get better, and of course I have to meet their parents to talk about these reports. This doesn't sound like much, but all these things I have to do on top of my normal workload, which includes grading 30 tests from advanced students, each test with about 800 to 1200 words. Thus, I think I am entitled to a bit of moaning.
On the plus side, I finished knitting a pair of socks, baked a cake with nuts and nutella and watched the 8th season of Doctor Who, which I liked much more than season 6 and 7. So, not all is bad and things will hopefully get better soon.

January in Retrospect

January has been a rather good month. Although I have been ill for a few days, I did several things I really liked and had planned for a long time. First, I finally went to the Mauritius Mediathek in Wiesbaden. I am trying not to buy new stuff (including books) until March, so it's great to get reading material there. And it's just a ten-minute walk from my home, so there is no excuse not to go there.
Moreover, we have started a new Cthulhu-campaign, as I have already written. At the moment, we are only three participants, but I hope that we will be joined by a new player in summer.
Another great thing was planning our next LARP. It will take place in the 1930s and all the characters will be police officers. It's so much fun, I actually enjoy organizing LARPs much more than being a player.
My boyfriend and me spend some time playing Little Big Planet on the PlayStation and had a great time jumping -and falling- around.
Foodwise I stopped buying cake during the week and baked a cake on the weekend instead. I love cake and now I spend the whole week trying to decide which one I will make for the weekend. We also went to Harput, a great Turkish restaurant, twice and I had delicious meatballs at the Hafeneck in Mainz.
I went to a march against the Pegida-group (I won't call them a "movement"...) which helped a bit against my frustration about these people.
I did not craft much since I spent too much time playing FarCry 4, but I have the feeling that my binge-playing phase is in decline, as you can see by me writing a post here instead of sitting in front of the TV liberating the people of Kyrat.
I went to a nearby cafe a lot (though I didn't eat cake, only buns, which don't count) because I can read there much more concentrated than at home. I had to read Medea.Stimmen by Christa Wolf for school and it's one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. I glad it's on the reading list for the Abitur, otherwise I guess I wouldn't have picked it up.
All in all, this was a good start, let's hope the rest of 2015 will continue like this!

Distractions

I didn't post anything last week because I was very busy. I went to an Anti-Pegida march on Monday, on Tuesday we had our monthly get-together with friends and on Friday I finally started playing RPGs again. Hurray! We have begun playing a very long campaign ("Die Bestie", a "Call of Cthulhu" campaign) and I hope that we will be able to finish it. A few years ago I played the "Masks of Nyalathotep" campaign and I'm still proud of it.
The rest of the time I spent in fron of the TV, playing FarCry 4. I am not a gamer, but once or twice a year I find a game I really enjoy and then I tend to binge-play. So now I am tired, the kitchen is a mess and I guess I should go to bed early today instead of trying to liberate another area of Kyrat...

Tentacles and Politics

Last year I painted some mugs with porcelain paint. Unfortunately, the paint didn't last at all even though I followed the instruction on the pens to the letter.
On Friday, I decided to give it a new try and scrubbed the old paint from my mug. After painting it again, I put the mug into the oven for 50 minutes at 170 degrees. (On the pen it says "30 minutes at 160 degrees...) Now the paint seems to be more durable, but the brown paint got cracks and does not look very even. All in all, I like the result and the cracked paint in the letters fits the "topic" of my mug, but next time I'll use a different brand.

 Next, I used my button maker to produce a political statement. I think it's awful that "Social Justice Warrior" has become a pejorative word, or that people seem to think that it is a great way to insult somebody by saying that he or she fights for social justice. In my opinion, social justice is something everybody should strive for and to say that somebody is stupid because he or she believes that we all should try to abolish injustice is just cynical and disgusting. In German, the term "Gutmensch" is now used as an insult, and I don't like that, but at least the "Gut" in "Gutmensch" is open for interpretation and can refer to different kinds of "gut". "Social justice", however, has a very specific meaning.
But I'll gladly call myself a "Social Justice Warrior",  and I don't want the term "social justice" to become spoiled. Language belongs to those who speak it and therefore we can influence its development. So I will proudly wear my new button!

Things I made

I used the last few days of the holidays to make some things.
First, a small bag for my dice:

Next, I finished a small patchwork placemat. The top was finished this summer, but I never really got to finishing the quilting and I was a bit afraid of the bindings because all the patchwork placemats I made so far looked really untidy around the corners. So I finally took the time to look up a tutorial online, made the bias tape myself and finished the front side with hand stitches. I think it looks great:

And this is the finished object: (My camera struggles with the colours, in reality it's less blue and more like a greenish teal.)

I also made 8 jars of orange and lemon marmelade and sewed a pair of black leggings, but I don't really think you need pictures of that...

Holidays in Bad Pumpernickel

New Year's Eve was strange this year. Usually, I love to spend that day with my friends, but as I grow older this is increasingly difficult. Most of my friends have children now, so they like to celebrate the new year with them. I, however, am not that fond of this type of event. Therefore, my partner and I decided to go away for the holiday, somewhere quiet and peaceful where we can stuff ourselves with great food and maybe use a Spa.
Thus we went to Bad Pumpernickel (as I like to call it in reference to W.M. Thackerey's fictional German Spa town in Vanity Fair) aka Bad Brückenau.
We had great food and went for lots of walks in the snow and most of the time just marvelled at the beautiful yet somewhat fairytale-like area. The spa resort of Bad Brückenau is about three kilometres away from the town, so it's like an island where only tourists and hotel staff live. It was built by Ludwig I in the first half of the 19th century and it would be the ideal setting for a Castle Falkenstein - LARP. (In a perfect world, where you get LARP-locations for free...) Sadly, we both have a rather annoying cold, so we didn't frequent the spa often, but we had lots of fun exploring the parks around the hotel.

 This is the main building of the hotel.

 Our room was at the "Fürstenhof", a seperate building about 200 metres away from the main hotel.

 This is the "Kurhaus", where the ball took place. The statue in fron of it is Lola Montez Ludwig I.

 The protestant church, a wonderful building with beautiful Jugendstil ornaments.

This oak tree is thought to be about a 1000 years old.

My partner and me are not the usual clientele of this place, but the staff was really friendly and helpful and we never felt out of place. We attended the ball at New Year's Eve only to devour the delicacies from the buffet and left soon after the dancing started and spent the rest of the evening walking through the beautiful park and watching the spectacular fireworks.
All in all, it was much fun and I would love to return there, but preferably not on New Year's Eve.

Hello Again!

This blog is like a badly made zombie - most of the time it just lies there rotting, but sometimes it is risen and staggers around for a bit just to fall down again. Maybe I'll be able to write some more in the future, at least I can try.

Well, let's be optimistic.

The last year has been very mixed for me. On the one hand, I managed to acchieve most of the goals I set for me: I have established a more frequent contact to my friends and met them more regularly than before. Moreover, I have travelled quite a lot. I visited my grandmother in the Harz, I stayed several times with a friend who moved to the middle of nowhere, my partner and me spent two weeks in Cornwall, I went on a class trip to Oxford and I was in Stuttgart for a weekend.

On the other hand, there are some things that need to change next year. So these are my new goals:

1) I have to take better care of myself. While I was not seriously ill, I didn't feel great most of the time and I haven't been able to really relax for some years now. I can't go on like this, so there has to be healthy eating as well as regular exercise outside.
2) I want to have a regular Pen and Paper group again. Roleplaying has been my favourite hobby for 18 years now, but during the last few years I haven't been able to maintain a steady group.Of course, it's more difficult to find other players now, because most of my friends have children and or rather demanding jobs but maybe there are others who feel the same need.
3) Although I hate the word "work-life-balance" this is exactly what I need. I like my job, but I don't want it to consume my entire personality. So let's try to draw clearer boundaries between job and life. That means more work in school and less work at home.

And I would also like to update this blog more regularly, so maybe I will use it as a way to keep track of my goals.

If anyone reads this, I hope you had a most wonderful year yourself and I wish you all the best for 2015!

Things I loved in October

Here we go:
1) Our 1982 LARP
It went well, everybody had fun, it was totally worth the effort. What more could I ask for?
2) Everything made from apples
I love cooked apples in every form as baked apples, apple pie, apple sauce, in pancakes and everywhere else. But they are even better when eaten in the appropriate season...
3) Hot desserts
There is nothing better than finishing a good meal with a cooked desert served warm. In October, I actually took some time to make some of my favourite desserts: Upside down Gingerbread (more like a siruppy cake baked with canned pears), White Chocolate and Orange Bread and Butter Pudding, and Apple Crumble with Ice Cream.
4) Watching "American Horror Story"
Yes, it's silly and campy and has some gaping holes in its narrative logic - but it's just so much fun!
5) The Kryptonite Radio Theater
We saw them perform "The Call of Cthulhu" and it was the funniest evening I've had in a long time.
6) Knitting with 6-ply yarn
It's so unbelievably fast.
7) Watching Blackfish
Although I am by no means an animal rights activist, I am always interested in how people perceive and treat animals because it tells you so much about how people see themselves. And this documentary is so insightful in the ways people interact with orcas. Also, it's really suspenseful and almost like a psychological thriller. And i's a good opportunity to eat "Goldfischli"...

Fox Pillow

After all the work with the yarn patchwork, I wanted to do something easy and fast. Luckily I found this tutorial for cute and simple fox pillows. It took me only two hours to make this and it was real fun. (Ok, I guess if you don't know that it is supposed to be a fox it might not be your first interpretation, but I like it anyway.)
 I'm already planning some more foxes, for example a polar fox mode from wool fabric left from a LARP cloak.

Next weekend I am hosting my first LARP since about seven years, so from Friday I will be off to the 1980s... I hope it will be good...

Spectular/Unspectacular Pillowcase

A few weeks ago I wrote that I was busy with a project that was much more work that I had expected.
I fact, it was an attempt to use up all the little scraps of the different Zauberball yarns I had lying around. I got the brilliant idea to make little squares from them, each about 10x10 cm and to sew them together to create a patchwork-like effect.
What I forgot was that this means that I had to knit at least 25 squares for the front of an ordinary cushion alone and so I decided to make only one side of the pillowcase from yarn and to use some corduroy for the back. Otherwise I would have had to buy some extra yarn and moreover I discovered that I really hate to sew knitted fabric together.
Anyway, I like the result a lot and I think the colours look gorgeous on my sofa.

Some of the squares lost there shape during sewing because I had some problems with the right tension, but I think the pillow actually looks better that way. Otherwise it would have been too geometrical.

Fairy Lights

I haven't written for quite some time but not because there wasn't anything worth posting. I have made a number of things and taody I am fianlly motivated enough to start showing some of them.

A few weeks ago I made these fairy lights, based on a LED lights chain. I wrapped the wire in some yarn in different shades of green and brown and I made a little paper hat for every light. I really like the result, especially because it looks not only great in the dark but is also decorative during daytime.

Things I learnt this summer

I haven't posted the "Things I loved in..." list for a few months but I plan to start again soon. However, I believe I have learnt quite a lot of useful things during the summer months so I am just posting a list of them:
1) How to operate a power drill
2) How to make "Maultaschen" (small dumplings, a bit like Italian ravioli)
3) How to make lemon squares (the best cake ever)
4) 3 chords on the ukulele (I hope more will follow soon)
5) That I still like reading
6) That more expensive nail polish is sometimes really better
7) That I can still do a somersault
8) That it is fun to go to a festival in the rain
9) That I am not an awful babysitter (only a not very good one)
10) What it is like to use the Nerobergbahn
11) How to sew leggins
and hopefully some other things which I cannot remember at the moment because they have already becomeso natural to me.

Some Things About Myself

I've been tagged by the wonderful Bronwen and although this whole tag-thing is a bit weird in my opinion, her questions are really interesting and creative and therefore I a cannot help but answer them. If you are not interested just move along...

The rules of this tag are:

1) Link back to the tagger.

2) Answer their ten questions.

3) Think of ten questions yourself.

4) Link back to ten more bloggers with less than 200 followers. 

I can't think of ten more questions and ten more bloggers, so I will only use five...

But first about Bronwen's questions:

1. Do you like stargazing? If yes, what’s your favourite constellation?
I am a bit ashamed to say that I am not interested in stars whatsoever. Although I can be enthusiastic about almost everything, stars are just not my cup of tea. I can admire them as some form of nature's background decoration but that's it.

 2. What would be your house in Hogwarts? Sure, it’s a question asked hundreds of times, but I’m still curious.
I'd like to think of myself as Ravenclaw, but I suspect that I would end up in Slytherin or Hufflepuff. Especially if the Sorting Hat catches me before breakfast I'd be put into Slytherin. After some coffee I'd make a good Hufflepuff.
 
3. How came your blog name to be?
I love the word "stuff" or "Zeugs" because doing stuff can mean everything. When I started this blog I was not really sure what I would do here thus I used a more unspecific title. I used my nickname first when I joined the Natron&Soda Forum. Since this used to be a place for people from the goth community and I am not one of them, I wanted a nickname that made this clear. Otherwise I would have felt like an imposter, so I chose the most un-goth nickname I could think of.

4. When you were little, what was it that you wanted to become when you’re grown up?
Lots of things. At one point I wanted to drive a garbage truck.

 
5. “What would you be if you were an animal?” is an old question. What would you be if you were a folklore creature?
Since I am a really optimistic person, maybe a phoenix. But I am not one for great gestures (like bursting into flame and being reborn from the ashes), so maybe I would be a Wolpertinger. 

6. What’s you favourite time of day, and why?
For things I want to do by myself like reading, crafting or even working it's morning, mostly between 8 and 12, because then I feel like the whole day with all its great opportunities is still in front of me. For socializing I prefer evenings when I have done all my daily chores and can spend as much time as I want with my friends. 

7. Hollywood or Broadway?
Hollywood.  

8. Nearly everyone has a field they’re sort of a specialist in (silly as it may be), if only in their circle of friends. What is yours?
As an English teacher, I am considered an expert in proofreading. If my friends were interested in knitting, they would know that I would gladly answer all their questions about it, but they aren't knitting so they will never know. Also, I know a lot about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

9. Big headphones or in-ears?
Neither.  

10. Do you like rainy days?
If the overall temperature is below 20 °C, yes. I like rainy days in Autumn but I detest the hot, humid summer rains.

Ok, I guess know it's my turn.
My questions are:
1) Which historical person would you like to meet? And what would you do if you met him or her?
2) Which superpower would you like to have?
3) Would you tell people about your special power or would you keep it a secret?
4) Did you ever watch a movie or read a book which you regretted afterwards? Why?
5) If you could choose among all places in the universe, fictional as well as real, where would you like to live?

I feel a bit uncomfortable with tagging people since I am not especially active in the blogging community, therefore this selection is rather random:
I tag
Agnes
Hana and Nria
Telfe
Morgain
and that's it....

How to make Sirup

And here is the recipe for the blackcurrant sirup I made on Monday. I found several totally different recipes on the internet and in the end I just improvised. So the numbers in this list are by no means definite, I guess the amount of sugar influences how long the sirup will keep but since I don't intend to store this for years it is not that important. Too much sugar, however, could turn the juice into jam instead of sirup.

I used 900 gr of blackcurrants, about 500 gr of sugar and the juice of two lemons.
First I cooked the currants in a large pot together with 200 ml of water until they were soft and mushy. Then I used the "Flotte Lotte", a useful gadget which presses the berries through a sieve in order to get the juice out, but if you don't have one you can pour the berries through a sieve lined with cloth. In the end I got about 700 ml of juice. I added the sugar, the lemon juice and 150 ml of water and cooked it for about 10 minutes without a lid.

The sirup tastes great if you dilute it with water (1 part of sirup to 4 parts of water) or you can eat it with icecream or pancakes. Have fun!

A Day in the Kitchen

Aren't these bottles nice?

Today I spent the entire day sorting out the kitchen cupboards and producing new stuff to put into them.The results are two bottles of blackcurrant sirup...

 ... two jars of garlic in oil...

... and seven jars of currant jam. I didn't take any pictures of them because there are already too many pictures of jam on this blog.

A Bag I Made

This is not the spectacular project I mentioned in one of my last posts, it is just something I made recently as a birthday present for my brother.

I think it's pretty good although I destroyed the first clasp by accidentally hitting it with a hammer...

Fun, fun, fun!

The summer holidays have arrived. I' ve just come back from my holiday in Manchester and it was so much fun. The weather was great (although the British people are suffering from the "atrocious heatwave" - actually, we had about 26 degrees Celsius...) and I spent four days exploring, going to museums (I especially loved the Police Museum), shopping and having lots of cake.
These are some pictures of the "Northern Quartier" of Manchester.

And here you see my dinner back in my hotel room. When I travel by myself I like to save money by eating stuff from the supermarket in th evenings... (Don't worry, I didn't eat all of it. Since my room had a fridge, I could keep something for the next day.)

Meanwhile in the real world...

Since I haven't posted anything in quite some time, just a brief summary of the things that kept me busy.

First there were many celebrations connected with school. My first class graduated from school and thus I had to attend the graduation ceremony and the Abiball, as well as having a private good bye-party with my students. All these events were great fun and I am so proud of my students!

I haven't shown any creative projects for a while and the reason is a project that has turned out much more ambitious than I thought it would be. It is a lot of work and does not look very spectacular at the same time, so I will only show pictures when it is finally finished.

I have also made some jam before the end of the strawberry season, and I started to sew some steampunk-inspired clothing.

So there are things to come, the summer holidays have started and I hope to show some pictures of my finished projects very soon.