Fun/Pub Quiz/Team O'Tuna

Yeeih – great fun at the Pub Quiz!

Our Team O’Tuna which consists of 8

people, took part at the pub quiz last Thursday (2013-11-12).

Sarah K., Sarah E., Marlene, Helene, Michaela, David, Sebastian, Magdalena and me decided to found a team that meets every Thursday to take part in the pub quiz in the English Pub „The Office“. As it was our first time taking part, we were a so-called “Virgin-Team”. Surprisingly we did the 34^th place out of 43 teams.

As big tables in pubs are very rare, we decided that two of us would always have to go to the pub earlier and oppose a big table. To find out who this unlucky people are, everybody has to pick one toothpick. Two of the toothpicks are shorter than the other ones, so the people who pick one of those have to go to the pub early.

First of all, we had to find a suitable name for our group. There were a couple of suggestions, from which I consider “Happy Hoagascht”, “Trunk Table” (you get the pun?) and of course “Team O’Tuna” as the best ones.

In the first part of the competition there were 10 pictures given and we had to find out which star was shown on each picture. The trick was that all stars were dressed up.

As you can see in the picture we had five correct answers which I consider a very good result for the first time.

Please, take a look in picture number 8 – how could we have found out who this is? You can only see his chin and that the person is male. You can neither see his hair, nor his whole body, nor his ears. Until today I haven’t found out who this is ;-) IMPOSSIBLE (at least it was for us)

The following two quiz parts were really hard as well. Questions were asked and we had to write the answer down on a sheet. We had 5 out of 20 correct answers which was not a perfect result. I think however, this isn’t a too bad outcome for a “Virgin-Team”.

The funniest exercise was the one, where we had to rank the most evil people in the world. I think you cannot ever answer this as all those people are incredibly evil and cruel! Man, they listed Stalin, Hussain, Bush and Bin Laden!

The following exercises had to do with music. In one exercise there were songs played that stopped at a certain point. We had to write down the following  2-4 words of the song – and this was especially funny because the whole pub started to sing the song. The question master was only shaking his head as he said, that we hadn’t got the point of the quiz – a team should never ever say the correct answer loudly so that another team could hear it :D

In the end we didn’t win, but we also didn’t lose! Still nobody was happy about our fail (well, almost nobody):

Corrected version of my second homework

My second homework wasn’t much better than my first one. It was spell-checked but the formatting of the paragraph was horrible as I found out later. Instead of writing one cohesive paragraph I wrote two, because I made gaps between the lines. If I had done so in an exam I would have definitely failed.

Here is my corrected paragraph (and this time it is really only ONE paragraph! ;) )

Having looked at a number of monolingual print dictionaries in class this week, I have decided to buy the “Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Use”.  I have chosen this dictionary because it contains the most essential information about a word. It gives the phonetic transcript, the plural form, synonyms and antonyms, strong collocations and example sentences. It even contains a grammar chapter which can be especially useful when you write a text. Another great feature is that you can easily carry it with you to class because of its light weight. Most other dictionaries are either too heavy to carry them with you or contain less information. In case you do not have the printed version with you, you can still use the online version which provides the same information. I still think that holding a dictionary in my hands feels better than always looking in the computer screen. As I am really convinced of the LDUC I will go and try to persuade my parents to buy it for me!

Corrected version of my first homework

My very first homework was more of a disaster than anything else. The first time I submitted it, it wasn’t spell checked ( I really don’t know why, because my word usually always spell checks my texts), so Fiona couldn’t correct it. The second time, when I handed in my letter, I got back a low three, which was pretty shocking, because I’ve always been a very good student in school and hardly ever got “bad” marks for my texts. But I see this letter as an opportunity to improve on my English and learn from my mistakes.

So here is my corrected version of my letter:

Dear Fiona,

 “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

First of all I want to say why I have chosen to study English. Over 350 million people speak English, so this is a language that really connects people. Everywhere in the western world, in some parts of Asia and whole South Africa you will meet people who speak at least a little bit of English. This is why English is the most important language in the world for me.

Another point is that I have always been curious to meet new people, especially when they are from another country. It has always been easy for me to start a conversation and find something to talk about. I also think speaking English is the easiest way for me personally to study English, to learn new vocabulary and become confident in grammar.

Next, I want to mention that I really need to work hard on my knowledge of English Grammar. This fact makes me quite anxious about my time at university and the progress checks. However, I think if I study hard and spend much time on studying English grammar, I have the chance to catch up on my peers.

I would love to tell you the story how I met my British friends Reece and Harry. They worked in my home town for one winter season, where I got to know them and spent much time with them. This experience helped me to get into the English language and improved my comprehension of it.

After this term I hope to have improved my general knowledge in English culture as well as my English speaking and writing competence.

Kindest regards,

Carla