Boontling in Boonville :)

Most Americans would not understand words such as bahl, harpin', and shoveltooth. These words belong to an unusual dialect called Boontling. The name itself is a mixture of "Boonville" and "lingo" and only a handful of people in the small town of Boonville in northern California can speak it.

The dialect started more than 150 years ago, but nobody knows why. One theory is that men wanted to tell dirty jokes but without their wives understanding any of it. There are further reasons given for creating this dialect in the video that you will find at the end of my post.

Boontling is also known for including influences of Irish, Spanish, Scottish-Gäelic and a barely known Californian language called Pomoan. Although there are many differences of how to speak English across the US, the dialect spoken near San Francisco is very unusual. 

Today there are only about 1,000 Boontling speaking people left in the town and only 12 of them can speak it fluently. In former times, 3,000 people were thought to be able to speak Boontling. It was even used to be taught in local schools. But now, there are only a few left, who have a good command with the language and when these citizens will die, so will the dialect.

Mighty Shakers - Stay mighty :)

This post is about the dance group of which I had become a member 2 months ago.

Background:
Jasmine, a  friend of mine, always used to dance in a dance group or a dancing school in Wolfsberg but had to quit when she moved to Graz to study psychology. She was looking for dancing schools everywhere but did not find one she fully approved of. In exchange, she went to a fitness center for a year but quickly realized that it did not please or fullfill her the way dancing did. When she heard that her friends with whom she had been dancing before, decided to come to Graz, Jasmine was determined to found an own dance group called the "Mighty Shakers".
At first the group had only a few members and the price they had to pay for the room they were renting was very high. After spreading the news around, more and more people came and joined the Mighty Shakers.

Now, the Mighty Shakers are a group of all in all 19 members and it really is a great thing to be a part of it. Even if I am not good at dancing, what maybe could be the reason why I am not dancing at the dance championship. :)

This is the logo:
 

New law in Canada!

There is a new law in Canada, which allows normal citizens to arrest people, who they believe have commited a crime. At first there was a law where citizens could arrest people if they caught them red-handed. Now, arrests can be made within a short amount of time after a crime has been committed, but the law is in force only when police are not able to make the arrest. The change in the law was made after an occurrence in Toronto's Chinatown in 2009. In May of that year, the owner of the Lucky Moose store, David Chen, recognized a man who he had previously seen stealing from his shop. He followed him down the street, with two emplyees on his side, caught the man and tied him up. As Chen and his employees pushed the man into the van and waited for the police to arrive, people on the street also called the police, because they thought that the tied man was being kidnapped. When the police came, they arrested David Chen for assault. 18 months later, he was acquitted.
Many Canadians think it is a good thing to be able to defend the own proberty but others criticize that the new law could put citizens in a dangerous position and is not clear enough in its limits.
The case of another Toronto businessman supports the Critics. A restaurant owner threw masala spice powder in the face of a customer and then attacked him with a stick, which led to the victim needing hospital treatment. The restaurant owner thought that this customer had stolen goods from his van, but the CCTV footage later showed that it was a case of mistaken identity and that another person was responsible for this crime. The law, however, received royal assent, but an important condition is that you have to call the police as soon as the arrest has been made. If not, such an arrest could be illegal.

American Dream without America :)

You do not think that it is possible to move from a childhood in one of South Africa's poorest and most violent townships to the ownership of two high-end restaurants? Then it is time that you become acquainted with the story of Desmond Mabuza.

Desmond Mabuza grew up in Soweto. Soweto is an abbreviation for South Western Townships, which was a union of townships for "black people", but today this union belongs to Johannesburg in South Africa. After his childhood, he was trained as a civil engineer in the US. When he came back to South Africa he had an opportunity to help set up a restaurant, called Back o' the Moon. He handled to do his engineering work in the daytime and managing the restaurant in the night. After a while there came his all changing opportunity: someone was needed to run the restaurant full time and Desmond requested for this job. 14 years later you can still find him in the restaurant business. He stayed with Back o' the Moon for nine years but then he started planning his own restaurant. His first own restaurant, called Signature opened in 2009 and because of its great and overwhelming success, Wall Street, Desmond's second restaurant opened one year later. Some interested parties contacted him and asked him about doing something in Namibia, Zambia, Kenya and Ghana. Desmond also works together with a hotel school based in Tanzania and he is eager to help whoever wants to enter the restaurant business.
To sum up: Desmond Mabuza started as a normal person with maybe even less opportunities and chances for a good life than others, but he did it. He never gave up or stopped believing and now he is the only black restaurant owner on the top of the footchain on the level of fine dining in South Africa. Nothing is impossible! :)

"We live in an era when people expect everything to be immediate -especially the youngsters. The real world doesn't work that way, unless you win the lottery." Desmond Mabuza

"Success is the perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty and persistence." Colin Powell (US general)

    

Born to be haunted!

    

Lions, we all know them. Some of us fear them, see them as the "mighty kings", others want to cuddle them and want to have them as pets at home, but there are also some, who do not care. These who do not care are responsible for a trend called "Canned hunting", which is booming in South Africa. Maybe some of you do not know this trend and for those I will explain it. "Canned hunting" makes it possible for hunters or people in general, who enjoys to shoot animals in an enclosed area, such as a game park, to do so.
More than 160 farms breed lions, which are just destined to get killed by tourists out of fun. In addition to that there is another outrageous fact: there are 5,000 lions in captivity in the countries today compared with just 2,000 in the wild and hunters do not care.
Although "canned hunting" is an obvious cruel and brutal thing, it is legal and a great deal of tourists still pay between 5,000 and 25,000 pounds to kill a lion, an innocent living being.
Not to lose hope, there are also some people who fight against this awful, unnecessary and cruel trend, such as animal-rights groups. For example, Fiona Miles, who runs a lion reserve, makes it clear that people need to know more about what is going on. She said that there would be a public outcry, if people would be aware of what the life of a captive-bred lion is actually like. Even some hunting organizations critise "Canned hunting", because it removes the sporting aspect of a hunt. One thing is for certain, canned hunting is still Happening and with everyone looking away it will not change.

Let me hear your opinions about this trend. What do you think about it? What are the pros and cons?How do you think such tragedy could be prevented?

Best teacher - paragraph

Hey,
I am going to add the first version and then the revised version of the paragraph about my favourite teacher to my blog. It would be great if you could compare both of the paragraphs and give me a feedback later on.

first version:
Of all the teacher I have had, Mrs Angermann was by far the best. She is slim with straight-looking Brown hair and has always a smile on her thin face. On the first Impression she seemed to be very strict, but she always wanted the best for her students. Nonetheless she had a lot on demand, for example homework and a good partcipation in class, which were the conditions for a good grade. She also was a really fair-minded teacher and not one of the "moody ones", where grades depend on how well their private lifes are going. Her best feature though was not her ability of teaching or her appearance but her light-hearted and kind personality. There was nothing too difficult or too unrealistic to accomplish. Mrs Angermann always encouraged her students to follow their dreams, fight their fears and to never give up. All the points mentioned make her the best teacher I have ever had.

and now the revised version:
Of all the teachers I have had, Mrs Angermann was by far the best. She was slim with straight brown hair and always had a smile on her face. Our first impression was that she seemed to be very strict, but she always wanted the best for her students. She was also a really fair-minded teacher and not one the "moody ones", where grades depended on how well their private lives were going. She demanded a great deal of work, for example homework and good participation in class, which were the conditions for a good grade. Her best qualitiy, though, was not her ability to teach or her appearance, but her light-hearted and kind personality. There was nothing too difficult or too unrealistic to accomplish for her students or human beings in general. Mrs Angermann always encouraged her students to follow their dreams, fight their fears and to never give up. All these qualities made her the best teacher I have ever had.

would be nice to get some advice :)

Green tea :)

Hey, my next post is about green tea. Some may say that green tea is not tasty and they might be right, but green tea has many health benefits to offer.

Let's start with a study in Japan called the Ohsaki-study. This study focused on adults between the age of 40 and 79, who drink at least five cups of tea during a week for 11 years. The result was that the mortality rate increased for about 12 % for men and 23 % for women. The study also showed that the death rate due to cardiovascular disease slowed down because of green tea.
Another studies showed that drinking green tea regularly can reduce the risk of getting cancer because in other countries, where the people consume a great amount of tea is the chance of getting specific types of cancer or even dying because of them. The secret of green tea lies in the fact that it is rich in cathechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Neuro-degenerative diseases like Chorea-Hunting, Parkinson and Alzheimer could be prevent with the EGCG. An Egypt scientist named Dr. Mervat Kassern found out that antibiotica have a better effect in combination with green tea. He tested it on 28 causative organisms of contagious diseases and the effect of antibiotica improved in all cases.
Green tea also helps in diets because a combination of coffeine and green tea burn much more fat and calories than only coffeine or placebo. In addition to that green tea could also prevent tooth decay, because it can kill the bacteria that can cause dental plaque.
Two negative things about green tea is that it could lead to insomnia due to the caffeine green tea contains, but still less than coffee has. The second disadvantage is that too much green tea for example more than ten cups of it, could be harmful and damage your kidney and liver due to substances green tea contains.
All in all green tea is really healthy and  recommandable to drink once in a while.