Joachim Gaßler
New member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2015
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- German
- Home Country
- Germany
- Current Location
- Germany
Dear Forum,
not sure whether I found the right place to ask for advice. If not, please forgive me, I'll try better next time.
Beforehand a few words about my situation. I am a 48 years old German, currently visiting a school to attain the "State-certified technical engineer" degree. Partial goal of this 2-years education is to reach B2 level in English. Last week I wrote an essay which was graded 98%. I am very content with this assessment, but I would like to receive a native speaker's feedback, especially with focus on wording and phrasing.
So here it comes:
“My Hobbies – An Essay”
I do not have to worry about tediousness. I have got hobbies. Not just a single one, but more than a handful, for sure. Most of them took roots in my childhood. Take a glance at a few of them whilst I explain.
Music
There is no pondering about the very first hobby that made it to catch my attention. In infancy I loved it when my mother put on a record or two. Also I was very impressed to see my grandfather play accordion. So I wanted to make music all by myself, wanted to play instruments. In an autodidactic manner I learnt to play electronic organ. In my youth I took classical guitar lessons for three years. Several years later – as a father of two – I fooled around with a saxophone. But after a couple of months I ceased stressing my children's ears. Nowadays I enjoy accompanying my son who is playing the recorder with my guitar. To explain this hobby's relevance for my life, I suggest listening to John Miles' song “Music”.
Reading
I learned to read at the age of four or five. Very helpful for my practise was the daily newspaper which I found at the breakfast table every morning. I started reading books like “Fünf Freunde und ...” (“The Famous Five” in English, written by Enid Blyton) in the summer before elementary school began. But soon non-fictional books must have cast a spell over me. I discovered that this kind of books help me to extend my knowledge about things in the world immensely. No wonder that I spend a lot of time with everyday reading – with a Faustian quotation: “dass ich erkenne, was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält”.
Computers
Well, computers are weird things. Sometimes they do what you suppose them to do, sometimes they don't. But what made me deal with computers? On a Sunday morning in the early seventies, my father, at that time CIO of a building trust, had to drive to the Cologne headquarter and asked me to go along with him. ON HOLY SUNDAY, the family day??? Well, that must be very important concerns when he risked quarrelling with Mom. Curiosity won, so I agreed. When we arrived, he led me to the cellar floor, and through a steel door we entered a room full of huge blue cabinets. The air was icy there, and most of the cubicles were equipped with buttons, some of them lit, some flashing. Other cabinets contained huge rotating reels, just like the tape recorder I disassembled the week before, but much larger. Wow. I never ever had seen something like this before. Dad went to a table, took place and sat down in front of a thing that looked like a TV set with a typewriter keyboard. The screen was black except for a thin green line flashing in the upper left corner. Then Dad pressed some keys, and what happened? Green letters appeared on the TV screen. Wow! My father needs no paper for writing, he uses a screen. Moreover, a colour screen! This was maybe the most impressive moment in my childhood. Immediately and intuitively I got an idea of information processing. From this very moment I wished to own such a machine, wished to control it, wished to construct it. A couple of years later my wishes got fulfilled – partially. Computers became available and affordable for private individuals, and in the early eighties I learned to write programmes on my very own personal computer. So I take pride in being called a pioneer of the home computer hype.
Electronics
What makes the bulb give light? What makes the very very silent music on the record go to the speaker, sounding like an orchestra? How can sound be conveyed over a huge distance – without being heard in between? Questions like these bothered me when I was a schoolboy. And books gave me the answers. Electronics is the key technology for all those questions. Computers are built from electronic components. From this point of view it was absolutely inevitable to learn more about electronics. Today I still like experimenting with electronics and electrical current. This hobby connects many of my other hobbies. Great Idea. But, safety first!
Nowadays
The last two years I spent a lot of spare time with fulfilling the remainder of my wishes. I designed, layouted and soldered a small computer “from scratch”. Currently I am writing an operating system for the little device that made it to change the world – at least my world.
not sure whether I found the right place to ask for advice. If not, please forgive me, I'll try better next time.
Beforehand a few words about my situation. I am a 48 years old German, currently visiting a school to attain the "State-certified technical engineer" degree. Partial goal of this 2-years education is to reach B2 level in English. Last week I wrote an essay which was graded 98%. I am very content with this assessment, but I would like to receive a native speaker's feedback, especially with focus on wording and phrasing.
So here it comes:
“My Hobbies – An Essay”
I do not have to worry about tediousness. I have got hobbies. Not just a single one, but more than a handful, for sure. Most of them took roots in my childhood. Take a glance at a few of them whilst I explain.
Music
There is no pondering about the very first hobby that made it to catch my attention. In infancy I loved it when my mother put on a record or two. Also I was very impressed to see my grandfather play accordion. So I wanted to make music all by myself, wanted to play instruments. In an autodidactic manner I learnt to play electronic organ. In my youth I took classical guitar lessons for three years. Several years later – as a father of two – I fooled around with a saxophone. But after a couple of months I ceased stressing my children's ears. Nowadays I enjoy accompanying my son who is playing the recorder with my guitar. To explain this hobby's relevance for my life, I suggest listening to John Miles' song “Music”.
Reading
I learned to read at the age of four or five. Very helpful for my practise was the daily newspaper which I found at the breakfast table every morning. I started reading books like “Fünf Freunde und ...” (“The Famous Five” in English, written by Enid Blyton) in the summer before elementary school began. But soon non-fictional books must have cast a spell over me. I discovered that this kind of books help me to extend my knowledge about things in the world immensely. No wonder that I spend a lot of time with everyday reading – with a Faustian quotation: “dass ich erkenne, was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält”.
Computers
Well, computers are weird things. Sometimes they do what you suppose them to do, sometimes they don't. But what made me deal with computers? On a Sunday morning in the early seventies, my father, at that time CIO of a building trust, had to drive to the Cologne headquarter and asked me to go along with him. ON HOLY SUNDAY, the family day??? Well, that must be very important concerns when he risked quarrelling with Mom. Curiosity won, so I agreed. When we arrived, he led me to the cellar floor, and through a steel door we entered a room full of huge blue cabinets. The air was icy there, and most of the cubicles were equipped with buttons, some of them lit, some flashing. Other cabinets contained huge rotating reels, just like the tape recorder I disassembled the week before, but much larger. Wow. I never ever had seen something like this before. Dad went to a table, took place and sat down in front of a thing that looked like a TV set with a typewriter keyboard. The screen was black except for a thin green line flashing in the upper left corner. Then Dad pressed some keys, and what happened? Green letters appeared on the TV screen. Wow! My father needs no paper for writing, he uses a screen. Moreover, a colour screen! This was maybe the most impressive moment in my childhood. Immediately and intuitively I got an idea of information processing. From this very moment I wished to own such a machine, wished to control it, wished to construct it. A couple of years later my wishes got fulfilled – partially. Computers became available and affordable for private individuals, and in the early eighties I learned to write programmes on my very own personal computer. So I take pride in being called a pioneer of the home computer hype.
Electronics
What makes the bulb give light? What makes the very very silent music on the record go to the speaker, sounding like an orchestra? How can sound be conveyed over a huge distance – without being heard in between? Questions like these bothered me when I was a schoolboy. And books gave me the answers. Electronics is the key technology for all those questions. Computers are built from electronic components. From this point of view it was absolutely inevitable to learn more about electronics. Today I still like experimenting with electronics and electrical current. This hobby connects many of my other hobbies. Great Idea. But, safety first!
Nowadays
The last two years I spent a lot of spare time with fulfilling the remainder of my wishes. I designed, layouted and soldered a small computer “from scratch”. Currently I am writing an operating system for the little device that made it to change the world – at least my world.
