Yes, it's my feast foreign language

Trial One

In our German classes, which are now almost four years ago, our teacher asked us to be cautious about what we say since we are on our way to become professionally-skilled translators and interpreters—which consequently means that the words we use count thrice as much. Being a vegan, I also have to be constantly wary about what I buy and what I eventually eat/consume. I literally see a connection between my eating habits and my practical language usage.

As a youth I always needed money and therefore I did lots of jobs in hospitality. My first experiences in this line of business I had as a pizza driver, but only for two days (due to the far too low wages), and as an ice men (job: refreshing the showcases filled with seafood wih new ice cubes) for a succesfull fish seller, also only for three days. My next experience on the other hand kept me occupied for more than an entire year: During my community service I worked as a dish washer and kitchen hand, plus—because money didn't suffice to finance my life—I additionally worked at a petrol station where I had to create sandwiches, serve fast food, prepare coffee, bake several breads and pies,  replenish fridges and showcases, and conjured up everything else clients needed. After this year, during my first semester as a student of philosophy I also tried to persevere as a waiter. Unfortunately I was too clumsy those days and therefore gave in much sooner than expected,.. sooner than I actually wanted. Eventually I needed a break from hospitality. It would take another five years until I'd give it a try again. This time I started as a kitchen hand and supportive cook (Küchenhilfe/Hilfskoch) and remained in this company for about nine months; then I suddenly couldn't stand it anymore. In sum, I definitely had a great deal of experience in hospitality, had a lot around my ears with blood and intestines—and that brought about a decisive cut that would change my view of the world decisively.

Throughout these years in kitchens, bars, Bistros, (and cars;) constantly fostered with nutritious meals,  I also became aware of the fact that food—these things I always took for granted and that appeared so simple and obvious as what they are—mean more than merely food to those who made it their very own profession since they feel obliged to put their hearts and souls in their creations. In fact, it often felt very strange to me when the chefs sitting next to me on the table sipped coffee in a united league of experts; discussing ingredients, choice of side dishes, flour prices, and so forth, as if it was to decide over life and death. Maybe I am a bit exaggerating in your point of view but it literally got through that cooking can be taken very serious in professional kitchens. Cooking experts have an own communication system, an astonishingly wide range of specific vocabulary (at least as much as they have different herbs and spices), and thousands of noteworthy secrets that distinguish them from wannabe chefs and from those who think cooking was just a bland, has-to-be-done job. But you knew all that before, right?

Well, because what I actually wanted to mention is even more fundamental, but maybe you haven't thought about it yet...


Trial Two

Today, after an eleven hour power nap, I went to the dining room for breakfast, took a cup of black coffee with sugar and asked myself the fundamental question: "What would Jesus do?" I guess, he'd probably let his fellows slaughter the rest of the world and later complain about them slaughtering the rest of the world. But what already bugged me during my eleven hour nap, which appeared like an eleven year nap then brought up the question: "What would Puff the Magic Dragon do?" He'd probably label all his stuff and leave the cave in order to go for some shooting in the next Schießbude, and in that way get rid of thoughts about Jesus and whoever else wanted to be leader of the world. But the answer to this question was not appeasing at all and made me ponder about my misguided life, because now, in my thirty-third year of age, the hardest of all—remaining without any sort of invigoration, barely disillusioned about the future of my studies—I'm dealing with the question "How's my English learning going?" That question took me very long but eventually I stood up, smiled and prepared for a power walk to the distant bedroom. That is to say that there was rain outside, me too, but other than me the rain was wet and salty. And I went by bike which was very hard for me to cope with; Rain is usually heavier when there are clouds in the air...


Trial Three

I doubt that food wasn't necessary in my daily life but it makes me desperate to constantly think about the animals that get killed throughout the process of food production. They usually end as meals because people do not really care about what other beings feel. As a controversial fact,  the vast majority of omnivores prefer the taste of a succulent chicken or a bloody beefsteak to everything else that can be enjoyable, such as a poker match with friends or a run through the woods. That's why I think that it's more important to find alternative entertainment to food. Life would certainly be better if the gluttonous consumption of food wouldn't have such a high value in our daily lives. I am damn sure phenomenons such as obesity in most cases have their roots in boredom and desperation. It is unquestionable that people don't necessarily need as much food—especially meat—as they permanently swallow.

I still love and sometimes even "speak" food but I think it shouldn't guide our lives to such a high extend as it obviously does. Even so, like everyone else, I eat. There is one recipe I want to share with you. I got the idea at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne were I had starved to death rather than payed for meals—since the snack prices in there appeared that criminal to my tender wallet. However, here's the meal I found:

Green Sandwich

as a substitute for Extrawurstsemmel

Ingredients
1 quarter loaf of flat white bread*
1/2 egg plant or zucchini
1 tomato
1/2 bulb of onion
vegan soy quark
mustard
salt
pepper
beer
*such as the  caraway-spiced, fluffy ones you get at AKDAG Ankara or AKDAG Istanbul in Graz

Utensils
a camping knife
a non-stick toaster or portable stone grill
a bottle opener or a camping knife

Rite
Preheat the device. Cut the egg plant in round slices of about six centimeters (zucchinis can be even slimmer), the tomatoes in slices of four centimeters (don't half them), and the onion in slices as fine as possible; separate them into sickle-like anythings. Half the bread.
Sprinkle the vegetable slices with a generous dose of salt and a faint hint of pepper. Let them spread themselves on the hot surface, then turn them regularly until they're softened and easily digestible. In the meantime cover the lower half of the loaf with soy quark and the upper one with mustard. Put the egg plant or zucchini slices over the quark layer and the tomatoes over those [the zucchinis]. Distribute the onion anythings on the device and almost blacken them. Then sprinkle the result over the tomatoes and finally close the composition with the mustard-besmirched loaf cover. Open the beer; Enjoy

Who am I II

The disastrous sequel to Who I am–the blog no one red*
Same title, same boredom, same idiot
Starring: Micéle S. Red van Shouten
Guests: Vincence Sega, Noncence Atari

In my last picturesque autobiography (yes it is, considering the fact that it was actually supposed to be a flyer) of my pseudo rock star life I may have mentioned that I spent my spare time with writing lyrics and vocal lines for a modern Melodic Metal band once in the early years of our still young century. After that phase of representing testosterone, glamour, and testosterone I realized that I grew old and therefore nintended to set priorities–which meant to become more mellow and less dick, which also meant that I had to change the majority of my habits.
Consequently, in order not to challenge my countable amount of hair too much, I gave up screaming and headbanging. One says that losing hair doesn't come with Metal Music but with age. Whatever the real reason, I haven't found a recipe for staying young and potent at the same time, so I 'ave to blame my past music "carrier" for the undeniable existence of my unholy shakra's landing area that life off the beaten track automatically brought about. In other words, life sucks and below I may tell you why....

Who am I? – The bloke no one met

After my share of time with the band, I constantly played with the thought of founding my very own Metal band. Since I didn't want this little dream to turn into an idea as bland and unconceivable as a deluded open-air-baby-fart I accomplished what I thought was a smart plan.
First, I wrote some easy-cheesy songs with the equipment I already had. Then I bought office materials, brand-new studio equipment, furniture and tools vital for every kind of upcoming working process I had in mind, and other inexpensive materials I needed to mount the entire homemade installation. For instance, I had to collect a few dozens of these 29 centimeter-long, square-shaped egg boxes which I fixed on the wall as an improvised isolation against unwanted reverberation.
Having collected all this, I built a low-price working room for creative work that served as both a music studio (for recording vocals and guitars) and a contemporary atelier (for keyboard programming, drawing, textwriting, and artistic jewellery).

Atelier/Office

Studio part, first wall

I knew it would take me some time to bring this concept to existence but I was sure it would be worth spending time and euros on it. The entire working process, which lasted several months–due to the fact that I usually had to work in kitchens or on assembly lines during the day–kept me from uncanny behavior that every second hobby-psychologist would define as manic depressions. Simply staying busy was the best I could do during my creative phase between summer 2007 (the year in which the old band "dissolved into parts") and winter 2012 (the second year of my first semester TKK studies): I wrote songs; sometimes drew pictures; did a few remunerative jobs for several companies; and kind of tried to manage my beginning language studies. I also played basketball once in a while.

In the same phase–to be precise, in the autumn of 2009–my job as a kitchen hand brought back to consciousness my interest in cooking, a hobby that has always been quite consoling to me (especially back in times when I constantly had to concern myself with death and other hurtful goodbyes). Until late spring 2012 my home kitchen was equipped with a perfectly functioning oven and a spacious stove area above.  In the professional kitchen where I used to work [in the mentioned year] I could improve my cutting techniques and, as a result, it was more fun trying out new recipes at home. I did fairly well in baking pizzas, creating pastas, and baking fruit cakes,.. and minestrone.

Since my leisure time was marked by demotivating solitude, I prospected for a change in my life that would make me feel less lonesome; I didn't find the answer ever since.
Even so, I changed my life completely: First–pushed by constant arguments with the real estate agent–I gave up my fifty-square meter luxury home in which I mounted (and, logically, later demounted) my working room and instead moved in a forty years old mega-tight camping trailer where I managed my studies during what was actually supposed to be the warm season.

–Ass-kicked by misfortune, I had to deal with the coldest spring in hundred years of Austrian history (2013)–no joke–and that meant snow until May; resulting freezing feet all day all night; resulting frozen hair after somewhat zero-degree-cold showers; resulting panic attacks; a resulting weak nervous system; resulting outrageous behavior such as regular irregular shadow-boxing-sessions; and resulting spontaneous hundred-percent-necessary, desperate screaming concerts combined with loco running-in-circles. (There wasn't more order than I already put into this writing.) Of course, action taking place next to a public cemetery...   I doubt that I'll ever mentally recuperate from this "historical spring". Glad that it's over now; Back to the story–

I gave up my home, moved in a trailor, and from then on tried to focus on my studies. On top of that, in the winter of 2012, I would radically change my eating habits and become a vegan. In my first vegan spring, creations would work out fairly well; and on a monthly trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia I was given the opportunity to conjure up my first pizza–free from dairy, free from meat, free from whatever animals might be able to give unwillingly.
Becoming a vegan and now actually being some kind of convinced vegan was/is by far the most challenging personal modification for me as a recognized designer. What is most fertilizing is how different world makes sense these days.

Before autumn 2012; stuffed turkey roulade
in soy-Feta sauce with zucchini and potatoes

Winter season 2012/13; seitan burgers
in portobello sauce with yeast bread

The sad thing about what I'm telling you is that I can show you a few of my creations but unfortunately, those pics won't give you a clear idea about me as a person. What I can tell you is how I would like to be, what I think sometimes keeps me from being myself, and best–what part of my bad characteristics I don't want to give up (although these matters may not make me appear like an amiable mate).

I remember, I once was a very sociable and sanguine kind of guy who was well-integrated in society. Today matters are totally different. I barely smile and usually only laugh after a work-out in order to fill my lungs with oxygen. But I'm a desperate, misanthropic moaner for a reason: I trusted in the wrong ones for ages and now don't have the slightest idea how to integrate myself in my environment. In fact, I am still trying to shape a personal image I myself could undoubtedly accept. What's more, I usually cannot partake in group activities if my role inside of it isn't directing or to a certain degree authorative (certainly, because I had too little to compose in my own life). Since this summer of 2012 I am literally homeless and therefore cannot keep track. I am constantly afraid of losing my private space, and the fact that my budget–which I need to continue my studies–still melts away doesn't keep my composure upright. Sometimes I would like to be a little more sensitive, less consuming, more reserved, and more cooperative. But I truly struggle with the rest of the world, simply because I don't have a single loved person with whom I could share thoughts of what permanently burdens my breast. Since the split of the old Metal band I am with no one straight but me myself. That hurts and feels disgusting. I am wholeheartedly disappointed about the last seven years of my life, and I cannot find a single humanitarian aspect that could raise an honest smile. My life is real shit. That's why I'd do wrong if I didn't moan all day.

The only good thing about me as a person is that I never totally gave up myself and always found business that allured some creative and invigorating moments throughout these dark ages. In the last four years I read over hundred books (including comics of course) and now, eventually, I consequently feel like writing and expressing my view of the world, in which I appear to dwell: Ten years ago I started with an idea, the story of a helpless vagrant under a Grazian bridge. Last year I wrote the first scenes and some monologues. And in a warm and cozy Grazian nuthouse I even drew five sketches that could accompany my wordy story telling. Well, and since I do not want to pull you into my very private abyss, I instead provide you with two more pictures that may be able to give you a first fertilizing impression of my future work. It's a little queer.

Under the bridge

In prison

Thanks for your attention
CU in class
Michael