NinaOA is going back to school

when we arrived in Germany and have settled in our new home in Heilbronn in August 2008, we thought to arrange for my German language school right away. as soon as i have my visa stamped in my passport, i was asked to attend German Integration Course. i cannot explain to you what this course is until i am in my first day in class next week, September 25^th. 

it is a compulsory 600 hours course to attend for all foreigners who just moved to live in Germany. this course goes for 6 months and there will be an exam at the end of this course. i dread the word "EXAM", and it is CONDUCTED FULLY IN GERMAN LANGUAGE!

by the way, it didn't happen in the last 5(?) years, i take it is a new German regulation applied for all foreigners. i will take it positively and like the English idiom says “When in Rome do as the Romans do”, may it be a blessing in disguise. this is the book i was told to buy, it is called Schritte 1 (Step 1).

 

browsing through each page, i am sentence to a full German language, i was gobsmacked...! yup, that was why the school told me to get a dictionary (not in the picture) to help me to sort out the meaning in German-English. sounds like this is going to be brain-war, hope not, i will survive!

anyhow, i was anxious to understand the German grammar before my class even begins, and how to use the ‘gender’ to refer to a noun enough to drive me crazy! so there i go, going back to the book store and i bought Das Grundschul-wörterbuch (basic school dictionary). i hope it will help me, wholly...

being such a desperate housewife struggle to learn German, i also found a pocket size book “Deutsch-Englishce Ausgabe” a word by word German-English and i bought it of course, LOL... it is so handy that i carried it in my handbag all the time. so handy i could study it on a bus or while waiting for my bus :)))

but my problem is the pronunciation. the spelling is not like how it is pronounced in English. so, i started to make note how some German words should sounds like. my husband corrected me the sound of 'der' as i spelt it "dear" and he said it sounds like "dair"

now you get what i mean being a novice to a new language? German language is not WYSIWYG. Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache! that is, German language, difficult language!
and I WILL SURVIVE :))

My earlier blog linked to my school: Volkshochschule Heilbronn

NinaOA©

Enigma of the Green Planet - SOLVED!

not many people can get their lucky stars answered to their awaited question especially when it comes to the language of photography. i got mine responded within a month :))

remember last month i posted about my discovery of a mysterious "green planet" caught on my camera? it is now SOLVED. I have thought it could be a reflection after 3 nights in a row capturing this moon last August 2008.

My gentle Bloggers,

it is disappointed indeed, i didn't make history for myself that i thought i have captured a strange living object from outter space... LOL... but thatsokay, i will get my lucky star someday...

My many, many thank you to Gary Crabbe (wow! he is a pro photographer!) for your kind effort to take your time to explain how the "green object" was created by a bouncing reflection of the bright moon light going through the lens.

My many, many thank you as well to Phule. Yes! that was a spot on i had attached my UV filter on my lens and i was lazy to remove it.... but i like the 'mistake' i have made :)) a new learning curve for a junior photographer like me :))

Links to my 2 mysterious Green Object blog:

Caught on Camera: Moon and Green planet/object
See bottom 3 Comments Box left by Gary and Phule

Enigma of the Green Planet

NinaOA©

Photo Talk: Baptism of Fire

last weekend, we attended a friend 40th birthday party at an outskirt field outside this bursting Ludwigsburg baroque city. the evening temperature, being in the early autumn, was between 4-6° Celsius. this fire of soul warmed us up. while sitting by the fire, i took this photograph hand held on my cellphone: Nokia 6500 Slide. i'm so pleased to see it came out pretty well. thank you Nokia! :)

NinaOA©

Font and size Compose TOOLS disappeared

i was cracking my brain most morning because i couldn't find how to get all my Compose Tools back, especially the Font and the Size setting were not shown at all, so were the margin tabs :(

after many lucky clicks at Blogger Help Group, i finally found the answer i wanted. I actually have, accidentally pressed EDIT HTML (as per above image) and i should have had returned my tab to COMPOSE (as per image below) only then i could see all my tools are back on the board again, aiyaaa!

just wanted to share my little dumb thumb sight, LOL as well as a diary to myself to share with you :)))