Perspectives 5.1 (May 2014)

English Drama Night

The Student Magazine of the Department of British and American Studies

Volume 5, Issue 1May 2014

Have you heard of THE SCHWA?

Undiscovered corners of the university building

Changes in study programmes

ISSN 1338-6182

EDITOR’S NOTEAn Idiomatic Start

We won’t pretend that we didn’t have… well, difficulties that had to be overcome. Closing our eyes to them wouldn’t do any good. What we aim to do is turn a new leaf, look for the silver linings and new tomorrows, new challenges… Ok, you have the picture. Basically, we got a new haircut, bought some fan-cy clothes and put on a pleasant perfume. We dearly hope you accept the new “us” and we’ll win your eyes. You can look forward to new sections, getting to know peo-ple among us as well as those already out there, reading about interesting events and imaginary realms, too. And finally, can you bear yet another saying? Have you ever seen a phoenix rise from its ashes? No? So watch – and learn.

Kristína Pobjecká

EDITORIAL TEAMLUCIA AUGUSTÍNOVÁ

MILAN KANCIANKATARÍNA KRUPOVÁ

STANISLAVA NICHTOVÁKRISTÍNA POBJECKÁMARTIN PODHAJSKÝ

EDITORS

MICHAL LACHKOVIČKATARÍNA KOREŇOVÁ

DANA KOREŇOVÁPAVOL ŠVEDA

PHOTOS

LUCIA OTRÍSALOVÁ DESIGN AND TECHNICAL EDITORLUCIA OTRÍSALOVÁ COPY EDITOR

COVER ILLUSTRATION “PHOENIX RISING” BY TULA ŠARKÖZI

Perspectives is an online student magazine published twice a year.www.perspectivesmagazine.sk

ISSN 1338-6182PUBLISHER

KATEDRA ANGLISTIKY A AMERIKANISTIKYFILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA

UNIVERZITA KOMENSKÉHOGONDOVA 2

814 99 BRATISLAVA

CONTACTE-mail: [email protected]

4English Drama Night

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English Theatre Tradition at KAA

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Who is the Schwa?

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9 New Study Programmes

14Comenius University of Witchcraft and Wizardry

18Interview

with Katarína Koreňová

28Alice in BERLINland

English Drama NightMany of you certainly saw posters for the English Drama Night. Some of you maybe wondered why actors of the ActofKAA theatre troupe are making faces at a top-hatted man wearing the American flag as pants, riding a bicycle. Some of you came to the event to find out. On 13 March 2014 the P.O.H. City Theatre resonated with English. Under the auspices of the Department of British and American Studies two theatre troupes took the stage and also the breath of the onlooking audience. After many ups and downs, what was supposed to be a Visegrad Four festival turned into a Visegrad Two festival fea-turing the home ActofKAA troupe and the visiting Gypsywood Players of Masaryk University in Brno. Despite the sports comparison, the event was far from a competition. In fact, if I had to describe it with one adjective, I would use the word ‘friendly’. It was a chance to see what other English depart-ments are up to, to form bonds with other students with the same interests and ambitions and enjoy a pleasant evening together. A classy evening, I must say. Both plays were quite classic in script, lan-guage and style, and formal wear was the choice for most people in the audience. Apart from The Merry Wives of Windsor, mem-bers of ActofKAA also played the part of the the-ater staff. With the help of a few friends, they sold tickets, ushered people in, or decorated the halls with photographs from their plays. According to Žanet Morovská, who had the wonderful job of an usherette, it was quite challenging, since they had

seen the premises for the first time only on the day of the performance. Nonetheless, they ma-naged to run the evening smoothly. Every helping hand was of use, which was well illustrated by the fact that somehow for a short while even one of the members of the Perspectives editorial team found himself in charge of the cloak room. Even though the Gypsywood Players were per-forming their play Our American Cousin far from Brno, some of their home audience came to support them. Martin, who lives in Bratislava but studies in Brno, said he thought the play was great and he especially appreciated the American accent in the performance. All in all, the evening was quite a success. The organizers sold about 230 tickets to an audience of diverse age and background. The event was at-tended even by the deputy chief of the U.S. Em-bassy to Slovakia, Norman Thatcher Scharpf, who was full of praise for ActofKAA’s acting skills – and that’s quite something. I believe all theatre goers got their annual dose of dramatic art, and they will return next year for some more. I hope that this was just one of the many events to come that will help us make bonds with other universities and cross aca-demic borders with art and amity.

Stanislava Nichtová in cooperation with Milan Kancian

PHOTOS: MICHAL LACHKOVIČ

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English Drama Nightor rather a comedy night?

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First things first: the name. Masaryk University has a recreational facility in Cikháj, a village of about 100 inhabitants in the heart of Vysočina. It is where the Gypsywood Players meet and rehearse their plays. The name of the village comes from the Ger-man “Ziegenhain”, which means “a goats grove”, but the Gypsywood Players translated it to English based on sound rather than meaning.

According to Romana Juriňáková, a member of the theater troupe, everybody from the depart-ment is proud of the long history of their theatre group. And rightfully. It was founded in 1965, and since then it has produced a number of wonder-ful performances, including A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Importance of Being Earnest, My Fair Lady, Animal Farm (they were actually rehearsing

this famous play by George Orwell in the first days of the Velvet Revolution in 1989) and others. Since its beginnings the troupe has involved more than 340 peo-ple, including some current professors. In the winter semester of 2013 they rehearsed a piece called Our American Cousin, which was written in 1858 by Tom Taylor. This play, full of typical British hu-mor, became notorious for being played at Ford’s Theater in Washington on 14 April 1865. Does that ring a bell? On that very night, the President of the United States Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Fortunately, noth-ing happened during the Gypsywood Players’ performance. They only surprised the audience with

Who are The Gypsywood Players?

an unusual and unique beginning. Before Our American Cousin they presented another play. Its ti-tle, Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln?, was derived from the phrase “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”, “an old, bad American joke, a metaphorical way of suggesting that somebody has missed a given situation’s most glaring element,” as its writer and director Jeff Smith, a new faculty member of the Department of English and Ameri-can Studies in Brno, explains. Since Mrs. Lincoln never got to answer that question, the Gypsywood Players did so for her. And not only that. They gave a great perfor-mance of Our American Cousing, a comedy play-ing a lot on British and American stereotypes, and charmed the audience with their perfect accents. They praised especially Eva Ptašková, a very natu-ral actress who played the part of Florence, and

Filip Putar, alias the noisy, coarse, vulgar American cousin Asa Threnchard – although some viewers re-marked that subtitles would have come in useful at times. Hopefully, they got most of the jokes. Others liked the music. The Gypsywood Play-ers had brought with them two musicians, who were present on the stage for the whole length of the performance, playing the riffs of some famous songs such as “Sweet Home, Alabama”. Hats off for this idea. Hopefully, it was not the last appearance of the Gypsywood Players in Bratislava and we will get a chance to see them again at some point in the future. After all, from what we have heard, they are used to performing in various theatres, even outside Brno.

Katarína Krupová

PHOTO: BARBORA ORLICKÁ

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Life before ActofKAAEnglish Theatre Tradition at KAA

by Lucia Otrísalová

Although it may seem that ActofKAA has revolution-ized the cultural and artistic life at the department, their activities represent but a return to a tradition that developed at the Department of British and American Studies already in the early 1990s. It was in 1992 that a first student theatre group performing in English was founded at the depart-ment as a joint initiative of English lecturer Colin Hill and the Bratislava office of the British Council. A year later, they made a public debut with a pro-duction of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, with which they also appeared at an English theatre fes-tival in Brno. This was followed by further produc-tions under the direction of Colin Hill and other Brit-ish and American instructors. Besides opening night performances at Teatro Istropolis in Bratislava, the student theatre group made appearances in other university towns in Slovakia (Nitra, Banská Bystrica, Prešov, Košice). A significant milestone in its devel-opment was the 1997 production of the first origi-nal play, The Forbidden City, written by one of its members, Ivan Lacko. Despite the fact that, as he admits in the interview included in his book A Thor-ough Collection, the play “more ‘just happened’ than was consciously written” (220), more was to come from his pen in the coming years. In 1997, although several of the theatre group’s members, including Ivan Lacko, had left university, they focused on smuggling theatre into schools. To-gether with Paul Stocks, they launched a project aimed at the introduction of drama techniques to

high school English classes. “Drama Days”, as the project was titled, was later extended to include workshops for high school teachers and students both in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, orga-nized with the support of the British Council and the Slovak Association of Teachers of English. It was again with the assistance of the British Council that the theatre group published a book on the use of drama techniques in the classroom Play with English in 2001. In 1999 the group registered as a civic associa-tion called BELTS (Bratislava English Language The-atre Society), which until 2007 united students, the founding members of the original English theatre group at KAA, as well as the members of two suc-cessor groups, one led by the department’s faculty member Adriana Strýčková and the other by Paul Webb from the British Council. Apart from educa-tional activities, the association organized interna-tional English theatre festivals. The first international festival was held in 1998 in Teatro Istropolis in Bratislava. Besides two the-atre groups from the Faculty of Arts, it featured theatre groups from Ostrava, the Faculty of Edu-cation at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Prešov, the University of Warwick and the Faculty of Edu-cation at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. The festival was organized by Adriana Strýčková, who later became one of the founding members of BELTS, and financially supported by the British Council Bratislava.

The patronage of the third festival two years later, under the title Play in English, was assumed by His Excellency David Lyscom, the then ambassador of Great Britain to Slovakia, and Prof. Ferdinand Devínsky, the rector of Comenius University. The fes-tival, held in the West Theatre, featured theatre groups from the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. The Faculty of Arts was represented by two groups again. The student group appeared with the production of John Godberg’s Teechers di-rected by Paul Webb, and BELTS presented, after the success of Ivan Lacko’s Entertaining Angels at the previous year’s festival, his play A Thorough Clean-up under the direction of Marián Lucký, who also acted as an advisor and editor in the process of its creation. This play had several repeated per-formances in different theatres in Bratislava (a-ha, STOKA) and also received media coverage. The last, fourth festi-val took place in 2001 in the STOKA Theatre and featured theatre groups from the USA, Great Britain, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Its patronage was again assumed by the British ambassador David Ly-scom and Mária Deme-terová, the deputy may-or of the capital city. Slovak groups included STOKA, BELTS with an-other original play from Ivan Lacko’s pen, Bon Voyage, Destiny!, and the student group with Turning Point by Derek Sellen. After 2001 theatre activities at the depart-

ment died down, but several of the founding mem-bers of BELTS never turned away from the-atre. Martin Din-ga, Silvia El Helo and Ivan Lacko continued with amateur theatre, this time present-ing plays in Slo-vak in the STO-KA Theatre. In 2012 Ivan Lacko brought out a collection of the four original plays in English that were pre-miered between

1997 and 2001, under the title A Thorough Col-lection. Vol. 1: The Millennium Plays. Its publication marked not only the twentieth anniversary of the beginnings of English theatre, but also the resur-rection of the English theatre tradition at the De-partment of British and American Studies because it was in December 2011 that ActofKAA gave its first public performance.

Works citedLACKO, Ivan. A Thorough Collection. Vol. 1: The Millennium Plays. Bratislava: Comenius University, 2012.

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TranslaTion and inTerpreTing Bachelor’s sTudy programme

Compulsory courses (51 credits)

Course title year/term No. of lessons ECTS creditsPhonetics and Phonology 1/W S4 4Introduction to Translation 1 1/W S2 2Introduction to English 1/W L1S1 3 British Studies 1 1/S S2 2Theory and History of British Literature 1 1/S S4 4Introduction to Translation 2 1/S S2 2British Studies 2 2/W S2 3Morphology and Syntax 1 2/W L1S2 3English-Slovak Translation 2/W S2 2 Theory and History of British Literature 2 2/W S4 4Morphology and Syntax 2 2/S L1S2 3 Introduction to English-Slovak Interpreting 2/S S2 2Introduction to Literary Translation 2/S S2 2American Literature until the End of the 19th Century 3/W S4 4American Studies until the End of the 19th Century 3/W S2 2English-Slovak Consecutive Interpreting 3/W S2 2Lexicology and Lexicography 3/W L1S2 3

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What Will Change?

TranslaTion and inTerpreTing masTer’s sTudy programme


Course title year/term No. of lessons ECTS creditsNon-Literary Translation 1 1/W S2 3Simultaneous Interpreting 1 1/W S2 320th and 21st American Literature 1/S S3 420th Century and 21st Century American Studies 1/S S2 3Literary Translation 1 1/W S2 3Simultaneous Interpreting 2 1/S S2 3

Optional courses (15 credits)

The student must obtain at least 15 ECTS credits for optional courses. Each is worth 3 ECTS credits.

Language of Media and AdvertisingConference Interpreting 1Conference Interpreting 1Non-Literary Translation 2Non-Literary Translation 3Audiovisual Translation 1Audiovisual Translation 2Simultaneous Interpreting 3Simultaneous Interpreting 4Literary Translation 2Advanced Consecutive Interpreting English Lexis Neologization

SociolinguisticsLinguo-Cultural Aspects of DiscourseEnglish for Specific PurposesAmerican Theatre and SocietyBlack Literatures and Cultures in CanadaExperiment in the NovelFilm and LiteratureChapters in British StudiesContemporary Indigenous Literature and Culture in North AmericaArt and Culture in Australia and New ZealandWomen and Society in the 18th and 19th Century

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Group AConsecutive Interpreting Practice 1Consecutive Interpreting Practice 2EditingTranslation Practice 1Translation Practice 2

Group BPractical EnglishAcademic WritingCreative WritingHistory of EnglishPhraseologyStylistics and PragmalinguisticsAmerican EnglishBritish English

Group CCanadian StudiesAustralian and New Zealand Studies18th Century English NovelEnglish Regional NovelIntroduction to Canadian Literature20th Century Canadian Short Story20th and 21th Century British NovelPop Culture English Children’s Literature

Slovak-English Consecutive Interpreting 3/S S2 2Slovak-English Translation 3/S S2 2

Optional courses

The student must select at least one course in each of these course groups and obtain at least 9 ECTS

english language TeachingBachelor’s sTudy programme


Course title year/term No. of lessons ECTS creditsPhonetics and Phonology 1/W S4 4Introduction to English 1/W L1S2 3British Studies 1/W S3 3American Studies 1/S S3 3 Introduction to Literature 1/S S3 3British Literature 1 2/W S4 5 Morfology and Syntax 2/W L1S3 5 British Literature 2 2/S S4 5 Lexicology and Lexicography 2/S L1S3 5American Literature until the End of the 19th Century 3/W S4 5Úvod do didaktiky 3/W S3 4 Optional courses (15 credits)

The student must obtain at least 6 ECTS credits in Group B and 6 ECTS credits in Group C. See the pre-vious page.

english language TeachingmasTer’s sTudy programme


Course title year/term No. of lessons ECTS credits20th and 21st American Literature 1/W S2 3ELT Methodology1 1/W S4 4ELT Methodology 2 1/S S4 4Contrastive Analysis of English and Slovak 1/S S4 4Syllabus and Material Design and Development 2/W S2 3

Optional courses (18 credits)

The student must select at least one course in each of these three groups. Each is worth 3 ECTS credits.

Group AInnovative Methods and E-learning in an English ClassroomTeaching Grammar and VocabularyTeaching WritingTeaching Speaking

Group BEnglish Lexis NeologizationSociolinguisticsLinguo-Cultural Aspects of DiscourseEnglish for Specific Purposes

Group CAmerican Theatre and SocietyBlack Literatures and Cultures in CanadaExperiment in the NovelFilm and LiteratureChapters in British StudiesContemporary Indigenous Literature and Culture in North AmericaArt and Culture in Australia and New ZealandWomen and Society in the 18th and 19th Century

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You are also a

What the schwa means to the phonological system of the English language we mean to this depart-ment. We are in the middle of all things, but we are not anything in particular. We are students just like you, unsure about our future, lost in the enormous crowd in front of Room 127. Despite blending in, we still somehow manage to stand out. We stand out through our desire: the desire to make things better, but most importantly, the desire to witness and take part in the creation of a real community. We have not been heard of yet, but that is about to change. What does it mean to be a Schwa? As declared in our manifesto, there are four answers to this ques-tion. The Schwa is in the middle of everything, yet is nothing in particular. The Schwa overlooks every-thing around it and has its own opinion. The Schwa is an inseparable part of the English language. The Schwa is never stressed. Our entire program, which is described below, is based on these four state-ments. We are here to help the students find who they really are and encourage them to voice their opinion. Also, what the schwa is to the English lan-guage, we want us, students, to become the same to our department. We want us to become an insepa-rable part, a living community of the department instead of a passive and unsociable bunch. Even you are a Schwa. Just as we are about to define ourselves, you should define yourself, too. There are two major things to do right now. The first one is connected with Perspectives. Per-spectives, the student magazine of our department, was facing a really unfortunate situation. Now the Schwa is about to adopt this cute little magazine and try to keep it alive – and it will be alive! Every department needs a magazine, and our depart-ment doesn’t want to stand back. The Schwa is not only a centering point of everything in the English language, but of our department as well. How does this apply to Perspectives? We see the Schwa and Perspectives as a centering point for students and teachers. Not that kind of centering point where one group just meets the other one, but a place where we co-operate and work together in order to establish good relations between students and teachers. The second important thing that the Schwa is working on right now is something that will touch the whole city of Bratislava. Right now we’re trying to discuss a possibility of “English Mondays” with the company in charge of the annoying broadcasts at public transport stops in Bratislava. Wouldn’t it be great to hear us on this broadcast for a minute and learn something new? We think it will be a big step forward, and we will keep you informed.

Another thing about the Schwa is that we also want to help Erasmus students. They are thrown into a new country, and someone who knows a thing or two about our university and its system might help them to get around. This is a very general expla-nation of what the Schwa is about to do. Since we are all just phonemes we should help each other. Erasmus students also need help as they aren’t well informed about certain subjects, which may lead to signing up for unnecessarily difficult subjects that they may fail. The Schwa comes here to rescue. We want to offer you our help, be it information about a subject or studying materials for it. We will need your help even though the Schwa “Core” will consist of students that will have sur-vived their first year. Utilizing our experience, we would like to create a survival guide for the fresh-men. Most newcomers will need our help, since they are small fish thrown into a big pond, which is full of sharks – courses. In our group, there are members that want to help others; we just don’t know how to do it yet. These are the efforts that the Schwa would like to take. These small goals, however, have been set only to make way for the ultimate goal – for our department to become a both social and academic body. We wish to make our efforts worth the origi-nal idea – to educate and turn people into scholars. We love our courses because they prepare us for our future, but we feel academic approach towards the subject of these courses ends when the teach-ers dismiss the classes. We want more. The entire society accuses us of being incapable of our own thinking and original ideas, so let’s stop sitting qui-etly behind our desks and become active people who know what they want and know how to get it. We are a product of a passive education sys-tem. And we are working on different ways how to change this. Thank God, we are lucky enough to be blessed by our fine educators’ skills. With their help we wish to overcome the already mentioned

by Millan Kancian, Júlia Lederleitnerová, Martin Podhajský and Maximilián Stredanský

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passivity not only by cooperating with our teach-ers but also by actively searching for our peers’ company and strengths in different subjects. The Schwa would like to establish a tradition – A Quiz Night. We want it to be a way of having fun as well as having a great way of revising our knowledge. After some time we would like all students to par-ticipate in preparation of these Nights or come up with new and better ideas how to be a rich and ac-tive social group. We are here to inspire. We are here to lead. We are here to back you up. We are you because you are the Schwa. We are also here to back up students who are active artists. There has been an opportunity for talented actors to perform under the wings of Ac-tofKAA for a long time, but we would like to take things a little further. There has only been a little space for the department’s writers to present them-selves but in this magazine. Musicians have had an even tougher time. The Schwa is here to help. The Schwa is going to do its best to create opportuni-

ties for aspiring writers and musicians to present their crafts. The Schwa is here for everyone. The Schwa is now here for you to be recognized. We are here for you and we hope that you’ll be here for us. We can’t make a change without your help. You are a Schwa, too. We certainly do hope that with your help, we can breathe life into the department once again. We want a community so we can spend our next few years in an environment that supports us, and we want everybody else to experience it in the same way. Then, there is noth-ing like stress – the Schwa is never stressed. We should co-operate instead of ignoring each other. Let’s define ourselves, but as a community this time. Schwa on!

Shh. Stop.Silence shall be the loudest -

my perspective on a world that is a little overcrowded.King’s garments in an office, no dirty, nasty doormats;One crow’s crown that was woven from our knowledge

So rusty and old,piece of history in books;

There’s no story with a twistuntil a bird is on the look -

Watching people flock, no night sleep,pretty faces, minds ugly,

these dreams we call nightmares -the daily dose for their bodies;

Prescription drugs, we are one,your euphoria; Leaves falling down,it’s a start, time’s too slow to run,but then it comes, stressing out,

time’s the murderer - just wait for us,hold up, we are here for you...

The Schwa.

Martin Podhajský

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Comenius University of Witchcraft and Wizardry by Stanislava Nichtová

Like many other people of our generation, I waited for a letter from Hogwarts when I was 11. When it did not arrive (did yours?), I was quite devastated. Well, who wouldn’t want to study in such a wonderful, fun building where the staircases change every hour, new corridors appear out of nowhere and there is always something unexpected waiting for you around the corner? That’s why I’m so fascinated by our University building. Remember your first week? Running around, trying to find the right classroom accord-ing to our super-cryptic timetable full of such mysterious codes as N423... those were the times. Actually, I bet it took you more than a week until you started feeling well-oriented in our school. The main reason is that the buildings at Gondova and at Šafárik Square defy all the rules of architecture, physics and reason, and the only way how to really get around is to know exactly where you are going. There are a few specialties and building-features I’d like to bring to your attention.

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1) I’ll start with the known fact that the building at Šafárik Square is not equally leveled. When you want to get to – let’s say – classroom N412 you’d have to go to the third floor if you enter from the front of the building and the fourth floor if you enter from the back of the building. I bet a few of you roamed the N-building halls wondering whether you lost your mind, because you were ab-solutely sure that last week the classroom was on the fourth floor and now it sank a whole staircase lower. The main reason for this anomaly is that the front elevator is built on top of a platform which is I’d say a third or half a storey high, and you climb the other half of the missing storey up the stairs connecting the old and new buildings. I was a bit disappointed by this realization because secretly I had been hoping for a kind of secret half-height half-floor like the one in the movie Being John Mal-kovich.

2) Apart from classrooms and lecture halls the buildings house a dentist’s and a GP.

3) Have you ever wondered why the second and third floors at Gondova have mysterious round-about halls? What do they have that the first and the fourth floors don’t? The answer is – small courtyards.

4) Psychology students have a common room and they have classes in a tower into which you get by walk-ing up a wooden staircase (Fig. 1). 5) The second floor has a rounded corridor with a bench. You can find a strange acoustic anomaly there. If you stand at a precise spot everything you say sounds distorted.

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6) The less used smaller staircases lead to differ-ent parts of the building than the main staircase. These places are inaccessible by any other means than the stairs. For example, a smaller staircase onto which you can get from the second and third floor leads to a metal spiral staircase leading onto the roof. 7) You can find a plaque dedicated to the Turkish ambassador in the roundabout hall on the second floor. 8) A window on the fourth floor has no view be-cause there is a chimney-like structure built around it to allow sunlight to pass through.

9) There are catacombs.

10) No two corridors are the same.

11) Rooms 122 and 124 are next to each other because room 123 is in the staircase area behing a door opposing them. Don’t try running against the wall to enter it like the platform 9 ¾.

If you are still in doubt that our school is the model for the famous school for young witches and wizards, go and have a look at the salt and pepper shakers in our school canteen.

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KATARÍNA KOREŇOVÁ“Have passion for what you’re doing!”

by Kristína Pobjecká

Katarína Koreňová is a graduate of Translation and Interpreting Studies and currently a PhD student at our department. I had the pleasure of talking to her about the beginnings and challenges Perspectives had to face as well as her own experience during the time she spent working for the magazine. Let me tell you that after our lovely interview, I really felt a need to write. I wanted to put a pen to paper and create something new. Here you go, get your own slice of the inspiration cake!

PHOTO: DANA KOREŇOVÁ

PP: What do you think about the new layout of Perspectives?

KK: It’s quite well organized, which I appreciate a lot. There’s no chaos, you can find everything. I also like the logo, it’s interesting and creative. It’s great. But my first impression when I opened it was: this is not our old magazine! (laughs) What happened to it?! So I have to get used to it. Maybe my only sug-gestion would be for you to “adorn” it with some-thing eye-catching – to make it fun, because it’s for students. But it’s probably the students who should give you feedback. PP: Why did you decide to participate in this proj-ect at the beginning?

KK: When Ms. Otrísalová asked me and my school-mates to participate, I was excited. I was honoured. I didn’t hesitate a minute. We used to sit together and brainstorm, had very lively discussions, try-ing to find out what layout would be best, what name would work in this environment. There were long, long discussions about “Perspectives” – Why? Why not? We talked everything over, the section headings, the photos – every single detail. We had good fun and enjoyed it a lot. It was about team-work and it was a great opportunity for all of us involved to express ourselves, to channel our cre-ativity into something meaningful.

PP: What do you think about the rocky times we have been through?

KK: It’s quite hard for me to judge anything outside the period when I was actively involved. But let me express it in a metaphor. When we started with Perspectives, we loved it. We loved the magazine as if it was our own child. We had a passion for it. When you’re raising a child, it has to develop with love. When there isn’t love, it doesn’t develop. This involves energy, sacrifice, perseverance, patience and care. You just can’t give up when you walk through those dark valleys of audience’s ignorance or criticism. There has to be love and passion for what you’re doing. That’s the key.

PP: Why would you encourage students to take part in the magazine?

KK: I’d say, go for it if you want hands-on experi-ence in journalism. Go for it if you want to improve your writing in English. You will reap a good har-vest in the future when you’re going to translate into English. That’s what it gave me personally. Go for it if you want to learn to work in a team and be part of something meaningful, if you want to create and develop your creativity. If you want to spend time doing something meaningful and building a commu-nity and communication, that means relationships. That was our motto in Perspectives – community and communication. In such an environment as the uni-versity department, it is basically articles written by, for and about students that are in the depart-ment. They’re the primary target group. Students write something, other students will read it and they get to know each other, and the community is built. These relationships can give rise to other creative projects among students, such as ActofKAA, which was connected to our group at the beginning. It’s a wonderful opportunity. It is also about communica-tion between students and teachers, which can help to create a friendly and open atmosphere at the department.

“We loved the magazine as if it was our own child.”

“I learnt how destructive pride can be and I under-stood how in all we do in

life, we have to fight for hu-mility.”

PP: What did you personally get out of it?

KK: We loved the magazine and we put our hearts into it. I personally did not expect to get anything from it for myself. But with hindsight, I have to say that it gave me a lot. It was a priceless experience – and not only in journalism. My writing improved. I learnt to think of audience when I was writing. In the position of editor-in-chief I found out many things about myself too, about my weaknesses and strengths. I learnt how destructive pride can be and understood how in all we do in life, we have to fight

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for humility. That’s a lifelong struggle. But the re-wards are many. This experience has changed me.

PP: Why aren’t students more interested in the magazine? Where are aspiring journalists hiding?

KK: Have you searched everywhere? (smiles) Well, it’s hard. At the beginning, when I was editor-in-chief and actively involved, the biggest problem we faced was how to find committed people and contributors who would love what they are doing. That’s the hardest thing everywhere – to find the right people. Even if the group of the right people is small, they can achieve something. It’s better than a huge group of people who are doing something with the wrong motive. I’d like to address those considering participation

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“That’s the hardest thing everywhere –

to find the right people.”

and who are maybe still hesitant about it. I believe that if they get involved and if they put their hearts into it, they will never regret that decision, because they are going to grow personally.

PP: Could this be the new start for Perspectives?

KK: Definitely. What you have to do is to have pas-sion for it. Have passion for what you’re doing. And your passion will draw people. It’s extremely im-portant. The journalist has to be passionate, and keenly or sometimes painfully interested in what’s going on around him or her. The journalist has to be moved when he sees suffering, be alive inside. People can’t be uninterested in the world around them, they have to be curious in order to write well and write interesting stuff. I believe the magazine has survived a lot, and if it has survived this much, I’m happy about it. I believe it’s going to work.

TradiTional naTiVe american culTures

An Insight into

Those who have not heard of Ishi, widely acclaimed as the “last wild Indian” in America in the 1910s, had a chance to hear the whole story on 13 March 2014 when the Department was visited, upon the invitation of Lu-cia Otrísalová, by Jeffrey Vanderziel, Head of the Department of English and American Studies at Masaryk Uni-versity in Brno. Originally an anthropologist, Mr. Vanderziel teaches courses on Native American cultures, both traditional and contemporary, in Brno. In Bratislava he gave an almost 90 minutes long, but fascinating talk on key distinctive fea-tures of Native American tribes and regions. He introduced students to tra-ditional dwellings, life styles, arts and cultures, re-dressing the stereotypes about indigenous peoples that still pervade many minds – and not only in Slo-vakia. He also walked students through the history of white-indigenous relations in America and in the end he touched upon contemporary issues that Na-tive American communities are faced with.

It is gratifying that this lecture also attracted an audience from other departments such as the De-partment of Ethnology and the Department of Re-ligion Studies. Some topics simply cross the borders of individual disciplines and open up room for dis-cussion between them.

Thanks to Lucia Kozáková, those interested in au-diovisual translation had a unique chance to talk to the dubbing director Pavel Gejdoš, the dubbing adapter Viera Remeňová and the dub (voice) actor René Jankovič. All of them are actively involved in the process of creating the Slovak sound of films or TV shows of various kinds. One of their recent proj-ects was e.g. the TV series Sherlock Holmes. Pali Gejdoš described that he likes to combine voices that haven’t worked together yet or cast ac-tors who are not often heard. He said that he sees voices as “a colourful palette”, then he analyzes them and looks for matches that could ‘click’. His wife and editor Mrs Remeňová stressed that if she didn’t like her job she couldn’t keep on doing it for so long, mainly because it’s time-consuming and underpaid. Her message for translators was to be creative, stick to real-life language and offer a translation that is as credible as possible. Mr. Jankovič explained that dubbing doesn’t mean a plain reading of a text – it requires acting skills and personal engagement.

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duBBingGUESTS AT KAAA Sneak Peek at

PHOTO: SALTMISER (WIKIPEDIA.COM)

Did you know that actors get to see the script the minute they’re shown into the recording studio? Or that it takes 1-3 days to re-record a whole film? Al-though the Slovak sound is often heavily criticized, maybe the next time you watch a foreign film on Slovak TV, try to consider the time pressure creators are under and the immense financial cuts they went through.

by Kristína Pobjecká

TranslaTorsfrom the Last Grand Duchy of the World

Jozef Štefánik, Nataša Procházková, Ján Šalgovič and others from the Department of the Slovak lan-guage at the Directorate-General for Translation at the European Commission were happy to accept Pavol Šveda’s invitation and they also brought some interesting information along. Can you imagine working for a European institu-tion? It’s actually not such a crazy idea. But hold

on, don’t say goodbye to everyone at home just yet because landing a perma-nent job there is very difficult. However, there is an attractive opportunity to apply for a paid 6-month traineeship. There are always 2 trainees from either March to July or October to February. Although €1,071.19 might look like a huge amount of money, it is so-so in Luxembourg, as Nataša Procházková quickly wiped the smiles from our faces. Nevertheless, you gain much more than a pay cheque. You get a mentor who “looks after” and schools you in, you work with translation software and get to

know experienced people from around the world. Our guests also shared with us what their or-dinary day looks like – basically, you get up, go to work and finish like anybody else. A norm is to translate 7-8 standard pages. Some regular employees have the opportunity to ask for home office.

PHOTO:PAVOL ŠVEDA

ALUMNUSSilvia Puškárová

She used to elbow her way through to Room No. 127, sit in literature classes, do gap-fill exercises, prepare presentations... She would avoid, whenever possible, demonstrative pro-nouns in translations. She used to be just like you and me. Or maybe not quite, because recently she got the chance to translate for the European Commission as a trainee. It may not have been a permanent job, but being part of this environment meant a huge boost in her experience, knowledge as well as a lot of valuable additions to her contact book. Silvia Puškárová graduated with a diplo-ma in English and Spanish in 2011/2012. Al-though she was not a straight ‘A’ student and she even had to resit the entrance test to be admitted, she definitely is a proof that pursu-ing your dreams pays off. The most important things are hard work, persistence and active-ness. Silvia is everything but a stay-at-home type. During her studies she went to Spain twice (through Erasmus and Národný štipendijný fond) not regretting having to catch up on the credits at our Uni upon the return. Before graduation she sent a lot of emails to translation agencies trying to find a job in the field. Unsuccessfully. She found, however, a job at SAIA where she dealt with paperwork. Determined to become a trans-lator, she had a plan B. So again homeland had to wave goodbye. I still remember her excited face when she announced that she is going to Luxembourg to work as a trainee at the EC. Fortunately, the lack of experience with translation software was no problem at all. The five-month intern-ship came to an end leaving her enriched, more experienced and self-confident. Cur-rently she is heading for Hradec Králové to work at SDL as a regular translator. And she says, “Remember possibilities are endless…”

Kristína Pobjecká

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One of USTomáš Štrbík

There are many aspiring artists, but there is only a handful of those who took it to the next level. Tomáš Štrbík, a second-year student of English and German, is one of them. He is the author of a book called The Secret of a Parallel World (Tajomstvo paralelného sveta). Published two years ago, it deals with duality, the opposition of good and evil and various other topics. Tomáš started writing the book when he was 13. It had gone through three drafts before it was first published. “The first version was written by a child, and as I was growing up, the book was growing up with me,” says Tomáš. However, he is plan-ning to rewrite it again in order to make it more artistic. At the beginning of his writing career, his biggest inspiration came from stories about witches and wizards, which fasci-nated him. Now he says, “The ideas just keep coming.” They just appear and lin-ger. Thanks to this, Tomáš has a lot of ideas for the sequels to The Secret of a Parallel World. However, there is nowhere to store these unused ideas. Fortunately, Tomáš has discovered another outlet for his talent. Besides writing books, Tomáš is also a singer and songwriter. This is something that you need a lot of time for. The amount of time and effort invested in each song is enormous, I can tell, but Tomáš is great at time management. In spite of school and other duties, he has been able to produce songs like Mooving on the Dancefloor or Water on Fire and is currently working on another one. “There will be more. I would explode if there were not,” adds Tomáš. “I hope that I will be able to produce all of the songs that I have written, and there’s quite a lot of them.”

Martin Podhajský

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As a student of translation and interpretation, I have always tried to practice the languages that I study as often as possible. How-ever, it has never been easy in Slovakia, as there are not many foreigners in this country, especially in a little town like Trenčín where I come from. I ex-pected to make substantial progress in my oral skills at university, but the opposite was true. My undergradu-ate years were focused on grammar, linguistics and translation theories, speaking spontaneously was only an infinitesimal part of our courses. Does this scenario remind you of your own studies? Anyhow, I did not expect to become fluent in German or English by complaining about the Slo-vak education system. I knew that if I wanted to im-prove, I would have to do it by my own effort. First, I decided to work on my English because I found my German quite usable – thanks to my mother who took me to Germany for one year when I was a kid. So in the final phase of my bachelor’s studies, I applied for a working visa in Canada with the program Canadian Experience – Working Holiday and spent an unforgettable year in Vancouver. It was the school of life that made me grow up, gain confidence and organize my priorities. Moreover, my English improved by about 100% and I learned the Western type of working morale. I had to take care of myself and although sometimes it was re-ally tough, I learned to respect my strengths and weaknesses and how to make the most of them. A gap year is a miraculous break. After returning to university, suddenly everything was more inter-esting (especially if you had spent the year selling shoes, cleaning up and serving coffee like me). And for the first time, I was not intimidated by speak-

Learning

ABROADby Jana Černičková

UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA PHOTO: ARVED (WIKIPEDIA)

ing up. The only problem was I had problems to express myself in Slovak (without using too many Anglicisms), not speaking of the “German leftovers” in my brain. Any words I could think of in a for-eign language were English, my active German was gone. Already during my bachelor’s studies I heard about a program called CEEPUS (financed by the Austrian government). I never considered applying for the scholarship at that time, I was scared that it would be too demanding and that I would have problems with the exams at my home university. Luckily, the master’s studies seemed a bit easier, and I was more confident, so although I did not expect to have a chance to get this generous scholarship, I dared to send in an application. And somehow, I received a positive reply! All I had to do was applying online and writing a good motivation letter – I did not even have to change my pajamas. It was very practical to spend a semester in Vi-enna, a city that is so close to my home university. I was able to travel back and forth, to take most ex-ams with my classmates and to apply for an Eras-mus scholarship as well. However, I must admit that

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the end of the term was pretty crazy. I also applied for a summer school in Berlin with DAAD (Deutscher akademischer Austauschdienst) and started to lose track of all my motivation letters, final reports, ap-plications and seminar papers... I practically did not have any summer holidays because after returning from Berlin, I still had the hardest exam to do – try to imagine the hot month of August and the materi-als from English lexicology everywhere with you. As I did not want to travel any further than my beloved Vienna, there was not much difference in the Erasmus semester, except that it was cold, there was twice as much paperwork and half the money. The latter probably is the reason why there were no other applicants for that scholarship, which I found a shame because it was still really worth it. I have to admit that Erasmus (financed by the European Union) involves many more students than CEEPUS and therefore is better organized, espe-cially the enrollment at the beginning of a semes-ter. It also has a network of students called Buddy System where there are 4 students in each group, one of them someone from the local university who had been abroad with Erasmus and therefore un-derstands the needs of his “buddies” and can ad-vise them or show them around. Both CEEPUS and Erasmus organize great trips where you will meet other foreign students and that are co-financed by the government so that you can participate for a student price. If you decide for any of these programs, it is important not to save money on accommodation in a big city because you can easily end up in a danger-ous quarter or liv-ing with e.g. Poles, which will not im-prove your working languages, unless you study Polish. While CEEPUS ful-ly covers your life expenses, you will need some more money with Eras-mus. The advan-tage is that Erasmus allows you to work and I think it might be a good chance how to meet some “natives” and improve your language even more. If

MY EXPERIENCE

ESN NETWORKPHOTO: TELECOM BRETAGNE (FLICKR)

you are financially sup-ported from home, your parents will not have to save up any extra money – the scholarship usually covers the difference (of course depending on the country you choose). You should not expect the semester abroad to be one big party (as some Erasmus students describe it), although a great advantage is that you can chose more or less any course you wish. There is some hard work at the end of the semester because you have to pass exams at two universities, but most professors are forthcoming. Studying in a foreign language with native speakers is hard and sometimes demotivating but it greatly improves your language skills and inter-cultural understanding. You also get a chance to reach out of the box of your home university and compare it with another one. Maybe you will be surprised that the Slovak system is not the worst at all, just like I was, and then you might be able to truly appreciate your studies at home. The message I would like to convey is that you should not fear the lack of knowledge, confidence or money because you will gain those by applying for the programs abroad. Study experience abroad will look good in your CV and, most of all, you will have unforget-table experience that might influence your whole career or life.

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Being a woman is not easy – especially when we plan to travel for more than one day and we need to pack only essentials. To take or not to take – that is the question. How to pack and what to take to avoid buying a backpack as the one in the photo? Let me help you, at least partially, to solve this problem.

Even though I consider myself a traveler, the art of packing seems to be beyond me. Sometimes it is really hard to distinguish between what I need to take and what I really need to take with me. That is the reason why from time to time half of my back-pack is filled with things (or clothes) that I don’t use at all. By trial and error I arrived at the conclusion that, first of all, it is good to have a list of things that one needs to take on the trip.

What to remember:

1. The less the better: While packing your clothes, remember that they should be, above all, comfort-able and suitable for multiple purposes. Instead of taking eight different blouses, take only three, but those which will suit different occasions. It is worth to pack a dress. It won’t take much space, but you can wear it to a party or if you go sightseeing. Sim-plicity and elegance may go hand in hand, and it is what almost every woman knows and what is easily seen in photos from trips and holidays.

2. Non-iron clothing: Imagine that you do not need iron your clothes. It is possible as there are many clothes made of polyester. Polyester clothes do not crease so easily, they dry out fast and take less space than cotton ones.

3. Comfortable dark trousers: Dirt and dust are definitely less visible on such trousers. You can also try another solution: leggings combined with a tunic. It is not only practical but also good-looking. What is more, if your tunic has pockets, you can always have small things such as keys and a mobile phone at hand.

4. A jacket or a blouse (preferably with a hood): Even if you go to a country where it is about 30°C all day, it is good to have a sweatshirt to wear because sometimes you may travel in an air-condi-tioned bus or subway where temperatures tend to be ridiculously low.

5. Shoes: Comfortable flat shoes are, needless to say, very important wherever you travel to. It is

A PackingNightmare

by Sylwia Jarema

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good to have comfortable shoes or sandals and flip-flops in which you can take a shower, go to the beach or even to a dinner.

6. Clothes suited not only to the climate but also to local culture: If you’re going to the tropics, it is good to have blouses with long sleeves to prevent sunburns. If you’re heading to Muslim countries and parts of Asia, it is better to dispense with cloth-ing that exposes cleavage or thighs. This is the first sign of respect for a foreign culture, and secondly, decent, non-revealing clothing will make your life easier – men from these regions can be very direct.

7. Miniature cosmetics: They are very useful es-pecially if you want to save some space in your bag. You can even pack them in your hand lug-gage. Drugstores offer a wide variety of travel-size packages (10–20 ml), which usually last for two or three weeks. It is a very good idea to take wet wipes – during long flights or coach journeys they are very useful.

8. Multi-functional accessories: A shawl can be not only a decoration but also a scarf to protect your head from the sun or a scarf for cold evenings. Sunglasses will protect your eyes from the sun and sand. Remember that pendants and long earrings are absolutely impractical. In the countries where white women are found attractive, it is good to have a wedding ring, which may protect you from potential ‘’local bridegrooms’’.

9. Underwear: Cotton-made and comfortable. It can even be base layer underwear (used most of-ten by people who travel in the mountains). Lacy panties and thongs may look good but are not the best during travels.

10. A flashlight, a pocket knife, a sharp knife: Take these if you do not take only hand luggage. Pack also hydrogen peroxide, adhesive bandages and analgesics. Make sure you take insect repel-lent. Remember that perfumed cosmetics attract insects! What is more, do not forget about strong sunscreen lotion.

What else is worth considering? Shopping! Are you going to a country where prices are low? Take less stuff with you. You will probably buy so many things that you’ll have difficulty packing.

Enjoy every trip you take this summer!

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TRAVELLING

Alice in BERLINlandby Lucia Augustínová

I can’t explain my first impres-sion of the capital city of Ger-many better. I have been stay-ing here for a month now, and I still can’t say that I’m used to its hugeness. To give you an idea – when the public transportation can take you to your destination within an hour, and you have to change just once it’s as rare as meeting a German who doesn’t like a tankard of beer. And I’m talking only about taking an un-derground or an S-Bahn train. In case you want to be really adventurous, take one of the numerous buses and enjoy the view during a two-hour ride. Probably that’s why every true Berliner should own a bicycle. Or so I was told. To be completely hon-est, I don’t think that’s a good idea for a foreigner who doesn’t quite understand their behavior on the roads. Who has the right of way on these streets remains a mystery to me. I would rather not be hit by a fancy double-decker right in front of the Bundestag.After a few days of feeling like a lost girl in an enchanted forest, I found my way in the 5-floored changing stations and the real adventure began.

Berlin is in many ways scary, but also very beauti-ful. You can meet all kinds of people in the streets – among others, also people just sitting around with their guitars playing a variety of songs. Once I saw a guy playing a huge didgeridoo (Google it for your own enlightenment). And most of them don’t expect any money for it – that’s the strangest part. Some earn their living by being bears (a bear is a symbol of the city and people tend to dress up as bears in front of the Brandenburg Gate and take pictures with passers-by). You can do whatever you

like here; I’m pretty cer-tain no one would judge you (of course, on condi-tion that you drink beer). One Erasmus student once told me that he had chosen to come to study in Berlin because the city “offers everything one needs as a student.” The more time I spend here, the more I realize he couldn’t have been more right. You can choose from all kinds of lectures and sem-

28

inars that would interest you (for example, I have enrolled for a course about the Brothers Grimms’ Fairy Tales), you are always encouraged to speak out and voice your opinions (the debates with the lecturers can become pretty intense, but they don’t seem to mind) and after every lesson, there is a tra-dition to applaud and thank the teacher by hammering at the desk with your fist. At first, it rather startled me, and I didn’t know what was going on, but it’s a very nice way to end a lesson. There is an enormous 9-storey library with all kinds of books, rooms for studying alone or in groups, reading halls, computers, copy machines and even a snack bar at your disposal to prepare for your seminars properly. The library is open till midnight every day, and I am really starting to suspect that some students actually sleep there too.But Berlin is not just about studying. One thing that amazes me about this city is the number of parks and lakes that can be found here. I have never expected this big multicultural metropolis to have so much greenery. A Berliner once told me that there are species of birds in Berlin which you can’t find anywhere else in the world. Lovers of history will also find places of interest here. For example, you can still touch little cavities in the buildings on the Museuminsel – one of the many reminders of the Second World War in the city. Or

TRAVELLING

try visiting the Museum of the famous Berliner Currywurst. Al-though I highly recommend tast-ing it first – it’s really good.Germans from other German cities say that Berlin is not a proper German town; they think that too many foreigners live here. At first, I was over-whelmed by the diversity of the place too, but it has somehow

grown on me. They aren’t foreigners; they are Ber-liners, a very nice folk indeed. I’m sure I’m going to revisit this wonderful city more than once. Maybe I gave you an idea where to spend at least a part of your summer holidays too.

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I have been reading through some web-pages aimed at translators and interpreters recently and what I found was quite striking for me. Allow me to explain the whole situation to you. I got bored one evening, and since translation is a big passion of mine, I wanted to find out more about the relationship between a translator and his client. I am quite familiar with the situation in Slova-kia, where many clients do not look at translators as equal business partners, but only as tools of achiev-ing their own goals. The situation is sad, but that’s what it is like. What struck me more, however, were reactions by disappointed clients. Many of them stated that after they assigned a job to a translator, the trans-lator never got back to them – without any warn-ings or notifications, AND what was worse, without supplying the translation. This fact struck me as alarming, since we, transla-tors, want our clients to treat us as equals. On the other hand, we do not seem to be ready to pay the same respect to our clients. It is a strange relation-ship. I immediately started thinking of a solution and, indeed, I came upon a vow. It is pledged by court translators and interpreters after they complete their exams and before they join the chamber of court translators and interpreters. The vow goes as follows:

“I vow on my honor and conscience that, while fulfilling my duties, I will uphold the Constitution of the Slovak Republic, the constitutional laws, laws and other general statutes and moral and ethical policies connected with the execution of

my duties, that I will fulfill my duties in per-son, without bias and impartially according to my best conscience and awareness, that I will make full use of my expertise and that I will remain discreet about the facts which I got to know during the fulfillment of my duties.”

Such a vow for court translators and interpreters might look like a formality, but they are indeed bound by law to do just what they vow to do. This made me think harder, and my mind wandered off to doctors. After doctors finish their university stud-ies, they also pledge the Hippocratic Oath, where they vow to help each patient that they will encoun-ter. An oath like this might also be a good idea for translators and interpreters. We could call it Je-rome’s Oath and we would pledge on our honor and conscience that we will always fulfill our duties, that we will value our jobs and our clients and that we will always translate and interpret to the best of our capabilities and use all our knowledge in order to do our job with due diligence. I know, I know. You can call me silly for such an idea. But think for a moment. The fact is that such an oath probably would not change anything – if a translator decides not to supply a translation no-body will die – in most cases at least. But still, such behavior is unethical! And maybe thanks to such an oath or vow at least some translators would think about their responsibilities towards their clients. Yes, you can always say, “Why should we change if they do not want to change!” You do not have to, but do not expect others to treat you fairly if you do not treat them fairly.

SAINT JEROME VISITED BY ANGELS BY BARTOLOMENO CAVAROZZI

JEROME’S OATHby Marián Kabát

OPINION

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A few days ago a friend of mine asked me about the way I treat my books. She wanted to find some conclusive evidence to support the claim that a book is nothing but an object of everyday use and it should not be treated as “a museum artifact”. Having all sorts of strange book-related habits, I can’t totally agree with her. I do believe that we should not go to extremes in the way we use books and that is why I was so amused by some habits of book lovers.

1. Reading the last paragraph of a book before actually starting to read it. Some people just need to know how the book ends, even though they have no idea what the book is about. This habit may ap-pear to be totally silly and pointless but, all in all, it is hard to guess the plot of a book by one para-graph. 2. “Stroking” with fingers the edge of a page while reading a book. Many people do it unconsciously without even realizing how frustrating the sound of this is to other people. 3. Checking the number of pages of a book be-fore actually starting to read it. Maybe it is some kind of mental preparation for another fascinating story? Or the reader is simply familiarizing himself with the object with which he will spend many hours? 4. Some people would never put a book down with-out reaching the end of a chapter. It is definitely my habit. No matter how long the chapters of a book are and how tired I am, not until I reach the end of it can I close the book.5. Sometimes it is hard to face the truth – the book is just boring. As many people tend to give up reading books which they find uninteresting, there are also those who do finish every single book they

start to read. 6. Folding the corner of a page instead of using a bookmarks – some people simply cannot stand dog ears; others seem to like them.7. Reading each and every volume of a series at once without leaving time for other books. Rather difficult if one reads a yet unfinished series (A Song Of Ice & Fire) 8. On the other hand, for some of us finishing a series is slightly more problematic. We read first volumes cover to cover and then we get bored and become reluctant to finish a story cycle.9. Reading only in very specific places or positions. For instance, in bed. Things like sofas, armchairs are not the same if a person got used to reading hori-zontally. 10. Using non-standard objects as bookmarks. For example, some readers use hankies, which pre-pares them for unpleasant or emotional twists and turns in a way.11. Compulsive reading before going to bed – some readers just cannot fall asleep without read-ing a few pages of a book.12. Carefully reading the acknowledgements page, which is usually placed at the end of a book by a certain group of authors. Googling the ac-knowledged people’s names out.13. Smelling new books... This is not a joke. There are people who are somehow addicted to a smell of books (no matter if they are new or old).

What about you, dear book lovers, do you have any other weird habits?

WEIRD HABITS of

BOOK LOVERS

PHOTO: JOHANNES JANSSON (WIKIPEDIA)

by Sylwia Jarema

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“Grandpa?” No reaction. “Grandpa, can you hear me?” The old man kept staring at TV. Jason was exhausted and raised his voice: “Grandpa, please, switch on your earpiece!” The old man in the armchair turned his head to-wards his son-in-law and nodded. He adjusted his glasses on his small nose and said, “Yes, boy. I’d been fighting for peace with these hands!” Jason sighed. “You weren’t even a sperm,” he went on, “not even a thought and I’d already shot the first bloody…” “Ehm, yes, yes. I know,” Jason interrupted him and reached out for the gadget in his ear himself. “So many bullets were shooting past these ears, I can tell…” Jason’s father-in-law Jonathan got lost in his memories. “Would you like some more tea?” Jason asked wanting this day to be over. “Tea? Oh, those were the times of discipline, order! No distractions. One goal. One mission.” Jason closed his eyes and massaged his temples. He was more and more frustrated. Suddenly, he felt his black trousers being tugged. His blue eyes shot open, and he looked down at his 7-year-old daughter Lilly. She looked so small, so fragile. Ja-son knelt down to be on the same eye level and took her little hands. “What’s up, sweetie?” She was so small. Too young to understand, to cope with it. Just then Jason real-ized he had wrongly buttoned up her black dress. ‘She must have been wearing it like this all day,’ he thought. ‘Nobody has noticed. Or everybody has been busy pretending she wasn’t there. Just to make it easier for themselves,’ Jason thought angrily. Lilly looked to the ground, her dark hair falling into her face, lips slightly trembling, and in a shaky voice she asked, “Daddy, when is mommy coming back?” She looked back at him questioningly. She was such a smart kid. But too young. Far too young for some-thing like this. Jason felt tears forming in his eyes, knowing it’s not the right time for them to be rolling down his cheeks. No. Not now. Not in front of Lilly. He has to be strong, a super daddy. He gulped hard thinking it’s the worst question he’d ever got,

and knowing the answer was even worse. ‘They look so much alike,’ he thought desperately. “Lilly, honey,” Jason said trying to control his voice. “You remember when grandma went to heaven to watch us all, right?” Lilly nodded. Jason had a feel-ing she already knew what was coming, but those words just needed to be said aloud. “Yeah, well…and mommy wanted to help her. You know how many of us are here. So now they’re both watching us, guarding over us. Remember, sweetie, you can always carry mommy here in your heart. Wherever you go, she’s with you. Remember that, ok?” Jason hugged her tight, her head resting on his shoulder. After a while Lilly pulled away and frowned. “But…” she thought for a second. “I could help them, too!” she said in a cheery voice and smiled revealing the gap in her upper teeth row. Ja-son found the missing tooth under her pillow a few days ago, when Lilly refused to sleep on her own, so he took her to his big double bed. It seemed so ridiculously big now that the other side was empty. “Oh, darling, I’m sure they didn’t manage to pre-pare you a place there yet. I think they don’t have much work for little 7-year-old girls up there.” She scowled and shook her head: ”I want to be with mommy!” She refused what he was trying to ex-plain to her. So stubborn. Jason’s heart sank at this realization – Jenifer used to be stubborn. Too stub-born in fact. ’Maybe if she hadn’t, she could still have been here today…’ he thought miserably. He closed his eyes and held Lilly close to his chest…

Jenifer lay on the bed, a wet towel across her face. Again it was one of those bad days. A split-ting headache. She had to leave work early. With both hands she pressed her eyes hard. She felt like having nails hammered into her head with an el-ephant sitting on it. “Oh, Gosh,” she slowly sat up breathing hard. She rooted through the drawers of her bedside table. Her tired sigh seemed endless. “Where are the pills?” Jenifer shouted, making her head thud even more. She held it in both hands waiting for the answer.

The Danger of Being

STUBBornby Kristína Pobjecká

32

“Ehm… look in my table, second drawer I reckon,” Jason shouted back from the kitchen. Jenifer stood up, a sudden blackness blinding her for a while, so she had to hold to the bed for support. She looked for the white container with blue letters. Jason was just tasting some sauce when Jenifer walked into the kitchen frowning. He looked over his shoulder and when he saw her expression, he asked concerned, ”What’s up, darling?” Jenifer inhaled slowly. “Who is Dr. Ashby?” Jason turned back to his sauce and answered matter-of-factly, “He is a neurologist. The best in town.” Jenifer pursed her lips and shook her head disbelievingly. “Okay, and what’s happening at 9 a.m. on Wednesday?” Jenifer folded her arms impatiently. Jason was stirring the sauce. “Well, it’s an appointment in his office. To talk. We are going together, Jenny.” He didn’t dare to meet her eye for he knew what would come. Jenifer laughed sharply. “I don’t need a super neurologist, some Mr. Ash-tray to lock me up in his lab! But you feel free to go,” she waved her hand and walked away. Jason threw the scoop angrily into the sink and followed her. “Jenifer, listen… these headaches… it’s not nor-mal, it’s been too much lately.” “I-am-just-a-bit-tired! That’s all,” she snapped, collapsing on the bed, her eyes tightly shut. “No, it might be something serious!” “Might but might not…” “Jenifer, stop it! You can’t play it down anymore. I’m not joking. You have to see a doctor.” Jason looked at his wife, desperate to change her mind. “Please, for me and Lilly,” he added softly. Jason saw her pain, her suffering, her inner fight – maybe considering his last words. “Look,” he sat next to her, “if it’s ok, then he’ll say you just need to rest more.” “And if it’s not?! Then what, Jason?” “I…” “Then I’m going to die alone in a hospital sur-rounded by tubes and devices humming lullabies!” She sobbed quietly in Jason’s arms. He rocked her gently back and forth. “Please, let them help you. I’m worried about you.” “But I’m scared.” “I know. And I can’t say I’m not. But no matter what

SHORT STORYthey say, I’ll be there for you.”

She didn’t go to see the doctor. Not even the week after or the one after that. Not until one day when she fainted and Jason brought her to hospital. They said it was an advanced brain tumour. She re-quested to stay at home so a nurse was hired to see her and administer medicaments to her regularly. She wasn’t the only one who the tumour sucked life out of. Jason stayed with her night and day, at her side till she drew her last breath and never opened her soft grey eyes again.

Now he has to be strong again for the other wom-an in his life – for his small daughter, Lilly. He held her tight in his arms, rocking her soothingly back and forth just as Jenifer had back then. He closed his eyes letting the tears fall, assured Jenny is at a better place now.

PHOTO: KATARÍNA KOREŇOVÁ

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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Lucia BrusnickáLucia bought her first DSLR camera in 2008. Since then, she has been documenting every important moment of her life. Apart from taking photos, she also enjoys editing them in Pho-toshop. Photography is her hobby and also passion. However, it was only last summer that she started to do pre-planned photo shoots of her friends and take photography more seriously. She would love to do it on a more professional level but she believes she still needs to gain more experience.

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PHOTO: LUCIA BRUSNICKÁ

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Do you want to have a perfect rendezvous? Make your date exhilarated (thrilled) with these stupen-dous (amazing) words I’ve collected for you. I guar-antee you won’t discombobulate (confuse) your partner but rather make them feel ebullient (bub-bling with enthusiasm). Make use of your brob-dignagian (giant) vocabulary when you take your significant other for a riparian (on the bank of a river) picnic and listen to the susurrous (whisper-ing) gurgitation (swirling of water) of the stream. That is the perfect setting to say something sophisti-cated, for example that they are callipygian (have perfectly shaped buttocks) or that you feel a pleas-ant tintinnabulation (tinkling) in their presence. If you want to be superlatively romantic, you can say that you love their smell as you love petrichor (the smell of earth after rain). But be careful, don’t make an ignoramus (fool) out of your-self by hamboning (rhythmically slapping parts of your body) or groaking (staring at somebody as they eat hoping to get some of the food yourself). Don’t be a flibber-tigibbet (a gossip). That gives peo-ple quite a curglaff (the shock of plunging into cold water). Tell them

they have a mellifluous (sweet sounding) voice and try to be sagacious (wise) and jocular (funny). Don’t pack too much food so that you won’t feel crapulous (ill from excessive eating or drinking). If that happens, go for a walk. You can end up having the time of your life by pure serendipity (finding something nice while looking for something else). If you want to please your partner’s ear with beauti-ful sonance (sound), just say “cellar door”. Accord-ing to phonaesthetics (the study of pleasentness of sound of words), this compound is the most beauti-ful sounding in terms of phonetics without any re-gard to its semantic meaning. So remember: words have power. The power to swoon, that is. No matter what gender you are.

Stanislava Nichtová

Dating Advice

The most succinct wordDid you ever fail to find a word for “the look between two people when both really want something to happen between them but neither of them is ready to initiate the first move”? Well, worry no more, my friend, for the Yahgan language offers one single expression, which is listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word”. Drum-roll, please! It’s simply mamihlapinatapai, of course.

Kristína Pobjecká

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1. This author was charged with ‘gross indecency’ (ho-mosexual behaviour, which was illegal in England in 1895), and upon conviction he was sentenced to two years’ hard labour. His name is…A. Thomas HardyB. Rudyard KiplingC. Henry JamesD. Oscar Wilde

2. This author was a sailor, a gold-digger and a mem-ber of the fish patrol. He traveled all across the USA as a tramp. At the time of the Gold Rush he set out for Alaska. He did not become rich, but he used his experi-ence from the North in his fiction. His name is...A. Robert ServiceB. Jack LondonC. John SteinbeckD. Ernest Hemingway

3. This famous author was abused by her own brother. She attempted suicide several times and in the end suc-ceeded. Her name is…A. Virginia WoolfB. Sylvia PlathC. Anne SextonD. Adrienne Rich

4. He spent the last years of his life in Cuba. In 1961 he probably committed suicide. Since he did not leave any suicide note, his death is thought to have been an accident.A. James ClavellB. Douglas AdamsC. Ernest HemingwayD. William Faulkner

5. One of his feet was malformed, which left him with a life-long limp. He died in Greece, while helping an uprising against the Turkish rule. His name is…A. Percy Bysshe ShelleyB. George Gordon ByronC. John KeatsD. Charles Dickens

6. As a prisoner of war in Nazi Germany, he witnessed the bombing of Dresden. His name is…A. Kurt VonnegutB. Joseph HellerC. James JonesD. Norman Mailer

7. She wrote under the pen name of Currer Bell. Her sisters were also into writing. Today she is known by the name…A. Charlotte BrontëB. Emily BrontëC. Anne BrontëD. Jane Austen

8. This author volunteered to be a “guinea pig” in a CIA-funded study aimed at examining the effects of psycho-active drugs such as LSD.A. Neal CassadyB. Allen GinsbergC. Norman MailerD. Ken Kesey

9. He was born as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was mathematically gifted but he is remembered as the au-thor of two immortal children’s books.A. J. R. R. TolkienB. Lewis CarrollC. Rudyard KiplingD. E. B. White

10. He has been living under a death threat since the publication of one of his books, which was called “blas-phemous against Islam” by an Iranian spiritual leader.A. Salman RushdieB. Khaled HosseiniC. R. K. NarayanD. V. S. Naipaul

How well do you know

the lives of famous English-writing authors?

FamousAuthors.org

Answers: 1D, 2B, 3A, 4C, 5B, 6A, 7A, 8D, 9B, 10AQUIZ

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There are some big stars heading in our direction:21 July 2014 Aegon Aréna NTC – Hugh Laurie (a.k.a Dr. House for the less informed) will come and present his two perfect blues music albums. It will surely be a real treat for your ears.27 July 2014 Refinery Gallery – Joss Stone will perform at the hip Refinery Gallery. What used to be a part of Slovnaft is now an innovative party and concert space. Throw in Joss Stone with her soul/jazz/R‘n’B music and you get a night to re-member.7 May 2014 Majestic Music Club – Steve Vai, one of the best guitar players in the world, will rock your socks off at MMC.

Want some culture, but don’t have any extra cash? All the exhibitions at SNG are free for a whole year. Their current Slovak Impressionism exhibi-tion sounds interesting.

Another interesting project is Komunitná nedeľa that will take place once a month at the old market-place and promises to be a lively place for every gender, age and profession. The program changes every week, so be sure to check what’s up, so that you won’t miss anything interesting.

Something for linguists:6-7 June 2014 – The world-famous Profesor David Crystal will have a lecture at the ELT forum at the University of Economics in Bratislava. His lectures are notorious for being both informative and fun.5-7 June 2014 – The father of modern linguistics Noam Chomsky will have a lecture at Palacký Uni-versity in Olomouc.

Stanislava Nichtová

Do you want

CULTURE with

that?

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Capital cities are supposed to be “the best” that a country can offer to tourists. We may argue about whether Bratislava is really the best our country has to offer, but if you get off the beaten track, there are quite a few unique places you can visit in this city – and what is best – for free.

Zámocké schodyIf you don’t want to go to Bratislava Castle from Zochova or SNP Bridge, or if you want to see or show something new to your friends, then definitely climb the steps to the castle, hidden next to a block of flats in Žižkova Street, close to the Chatam Sofér bus stop. You’ll get to see gardens and houses, a climbing wall, and especially during summer week-ends you might meet some young locals having a good time there. If you want to try the steps, you have to climb them from the bottom to the top – there is no shortcut. Some say that it’s the most ro-mantic place in Bratislava.

The karloVa Ves disTriBuTary If you miss nature in Bratislava and there’s just too much cement and concrete in your life, check out this wonderful place. This part of the Danube riverbank is a favourite place for local sports fans. It’s very popular for walking, jogging and canoeing. Dur-ing summer heats you can go there to cool yourself down or to sunbathe. Or you can just sit on the rocks a few metres away from the Danube and read your book. It’s said to be the greatest spot to watch sun-sets. So get off a tram at the Botanical Garden and enjoy this small island of green in the middle of a concrete jungle.

The slaVín monumenTOk, I know that almost everybody who lives here, or is just visiting, has been to this place, but the thing is HOW! The most beautiful route to take is to get off at SAV and take the steps, BUT when you climb the first part of them and you find yourself in Fraňo Kráľ Street, turn right. When you come to a cross-road, you’ll see a beautiful old building of a former orphanage. Then you go up Hlboká Street, turn left, and in a few minutes you’ll come to Slavín. Don’t take the same route back. You can have a nice walk from Slavín to Bratislava Castle, or if you’re living in Mlynská dolina and you have time and still some energy left, you should walk all the way to your dorms. Wander through the streets, see embassies and get to know the other side of life in Bratislava. Oh, and of course, the view from Slavín – priceless.

These are just a few interesting places in Bratisla-va worth visiting. I know, guys, that sometimes free time is a luxury, especially at this time in May, but sometimes you need to put your books aside and discover the world around you.

Katarína Krupová

Discover Bratislava

Perspectives 5.1 (May 2014)

Documents

Transcript of Perspectives 5.1 (May 2014)