Post #15. This is The End.

Hello everybody!

Today I am writing my last *obligatory* post here! As my classes for English 201 end, my blog ends too. However, I do think about continuation of it after having some rest in the first half of January. But my aim today is not to tell you about my future holidays and plans but about the English 201. I want to kind of evaluate what have I learned, what I have still to improve and what are my goals in the next semester. Firstly, let me give a brief opinion about the course: it was really great, I liked it very much and I would definitely agree that you should not skip that course as there is a possibility to do so.

So, let me start from the things I really learned during that semester. Firstly, I really got used in writing different types of essays. That is the biggest and the most important knowledge I obtained. The most interesting thing is that I started using the knowledge I obtained here on another courses. It really helped me a lot. Also, that course was great for me for huge amount of teamwork and oral activity during the classes. I have always felt the lack of it during the education in high school and now I received just the needed amount of it. Finally, I liked the idea of final project presentations – I could do what I wanted to. And I did – I put all my efforts and *soul* into Pink Floyd presentation, because it is thing I really appreciate and value in my life.

Nevertheless, there are still some things I can improve. Firstly, my awful grammar. Some people say that mostly I do OK in that field, but I think I can do better. In my opinion, I can improve my grammar only through practice and communication with native speakers; actually, I am doing that at the moment. Secondly, although I studied a lot about the essays I am still having problems with the conclusion and the expression of my ideas. Conclusion may seem too general and uninteresting and the ideas – unclear. Again, I can overcome it with more practice, I decide.

Taking all the things above into account, my goals for the next semester are: to work on the problems listed below, to learn more about English literature. As you might know, in Russian schools the literature classes rarely cover some foreign books, as the result of the amount of Russian classical literature. However, that does not make English literature less attractive to me; it even becomes much interesting to learn something about it!

So, in conclusion, I would like to say a few words about my teacher, David Atterberry. I think he made a great work on improving our language! Especially I liked the comprehensive comments which he wrote about our each draft. That helped a lot, so, thanks a lot!:) I do not still know who is going to be my teacher in the next semester, but I will be happy to have David as a teacher again!

Thank you all very much for reading my blog! See you in the further posts!:)

Post #14. Learning to fly.

Hello everybody,

Today I would like to tell you about the thing that inspires me a lot during any life situation. That is the music of my favorite bands, Pink Floyd. In my opinion, they are one of the greatest rock bands which existed ever. Of course, you might disagree with me; however, it is hard to disagree that their music is very unusual, specific and unique. Moreover, their music is quite diversified from one album to another, from one song to other. Sometimes the style varies even in one single song.  It really captures my attention a lot! The music of Pink Floyd helps me to achieve two main goals:

·         Firstly, it really helps me to feel relaxed. That is really important, as I could either just sleep with Pink Floyd on the background or just do my home assignments in a relaxing atmosphere. Of course, I do not claim that all of their music creates such an atmosphere, but the vast part does.

·         Secondly, it sometimes helps to reflect, to think about yourself and your relations with other people and with the whole society. I know that it sounds very philosophical, but it is really important for me to experience some thoughts like that.

Pink Floyd caused the great impact on psychedelic rock from the all sides. Actually, they were the first group ever to adopt such a genre. Also, I do very like how they combined classical rock with psychedelic in some compositions. That combination allowed them to touch a lot of issues in their music, starting from social problems and ending with deep psychology. Many groups afterwards adopted such unwritten standard of music creation.

Pink Floyd was also innovative by their use of electronic and semi-acoustic synthesizers and other semi-electronic musical instruments. That allowed them to create the famous effect of ‘space wind’ which still fascinates thousands of fans around the world.  I completely agree with them, I did not another group with such an amazing sound. You can feel it especially if you are listening Pink Floyd on the old vinyl tapes – I still have some. 

Actually, I do not want to write a lot about the group today, here, as I am going to do my final presentation project about them. Thus, if I write a lot now, I will have nothing to say at the presentation. J However, I at least decided to compensate the length of my post with some pictures and music, related to the topic, so I hope you enjoy it!

                                                            

The picture in the beginning of post is from the 'Dark Side of The Moon' album.

Moreover, while I was writing that post, I was listening to the following tracks:
Pink Floyd - High Hopes
Pink Floyd - On the Run
Pink Floyd - Mudmen
Pink Floyd - Us and Them
Pink Floyd - Another Brick in The Wall (Part I)
Pink Floyd - Julia Dream

Post #13. Argumentative essay critique.

Hello everybody,

Today’s post will be related to one of the recent formal writing assignments that I did for my English 201 course. Actually, it was an argumentative essay. Of course, I have used to write the same type of essays, but in Russian only and I did not fully understand the explicit structure. However, we spend a lot of our time in class discussing all the structure and model of development for argumentative essay, so I was quite confident when writing it. We were given 3 different topics, but none of them suited me, so I decided to write to David, asking whether I can take a different topic or not. David submitted my topic choice, so I have written an essay, answering the following question: “Should piracy on the Internet be banned or not?” That might sound strange, but I was protecting the piracy legalization for the several reasons. Actually, I am not going to talk about these reasons right now, but about the pluses and minuses that I have encountered in my paper.

Firstly, I would like to talk about my essay’s minuses. Of course, I managed to fix some of them in my second draft; however, some remained. What I am talking about:

·         I don’t really like the sources I have used. Of course, before integrating each source I used CRAAP test methodic to identify the accuracy of the source, but it seems confusing to me, that I have not used any books, only some articles. However, I think it is because the topic I covered is not really shown in contemporary literature.

·         The conclusion of my assignment is quite simple. I think it definitely can be improved, but it is my usual problem – by the end of the essay I become tired and empty of new ideas to implement, for instance, in my memorable statement.

·         Also, I am not sure that I have good grammar and mechanics, although I double-checked everything and fixed some places, which seemed wrong to me.

Nevertheless, I can’t say that my essay is completely bad – it also has some features, which seem pluses to me:

·         Firstly, the topic I have chosen is very actual for everybody today. Moreover, the position I have chosen, is quite unusual, so I decide that for readers it will be quite interesting to read my essay.

·         My attention getter in the beginning is a story based on my personal experience. I have noticed previously that story types of attention getter are often quite interesting for the readers and I do not think this essay is going to be an exception.

·         Apart from that, I decide that I have made quite a good research on MLA standard and designed the Works Cited page and parenthetical references correctly.

In conclusion, I would like to say that my essay is quite good from my point of view and I hope it will receive an adequate markJ

Post #12. The season and the weather

Hello everybody,

Today I would like to talk about the simple but cute topic: my attitude to different times of year and to different types of weather. Actually, roughly every season has its own weather, but it might of course be biased during the time of the year. Also, very often the same weather conditions occur in different seasons. Sometimes, it may seem unrealistic, but I clearly remember one of the ends of the December (I think it was 2009), when it was so hot, that even mushrooms had grown in the forest and new leaves started to appear. What I am trying to say is that I actually can’t directly state that I have clearly one favorite season. It depends on the weather very much. Also, in this post I want to focus on winter, because it is “in office” now and discussing that season is much more actually than discussing others.

So, although I have chosen winter as the main thing to discuss, I want to start from the ongoing season, spring. For me, only the last part of spring is pleasant, as in the end of the May it is usually the best weather we can ever have, in my opinion. +20 degrees Celsius, light slow wind, partly sunny sky – ideal weather for physical and mental activity. Also, during such weather I mentioned that it is really sleeps better.

Of course, sometimes everybody prefers sun and hot weather to the weather described above. For those moments, I do love summer. Sometimes, it is really warm and even hot in the summer in the Russia. For instance, I remember that I and my friends were even swimming in the local lake, and the water temperature was pretty high.

The only two advantages that I see in the autumn are that there is very short period of time, when the weather is the same as in the spring. The second advantage is that I have my birthday in the September. From the other sides, I do not see any advantages in autumn: unpleasant weather, great amounts of homework, dark evenings and depressive thoughts.

So, that leads to the main time of the year I want to discuss is, of course, winter. I can’t say that it is my favorite time of the year, but winter has its unique sides, which makes it sometimes beautiful. The first thing about winter that I do like is the great amount of snow. The snow makes everything looks very different from its usual view. Especially, it is notable in the Moscow gardens. If you compare two photos of the same garden in the winter and in the summer, you might think it is another place. It is just seems impossible how such a green place could become such a white place.

Also, there is the greatest holiday in the winter – The New Year! I know, that for people from Western world it might sound odd, as they have the X-mas as the major holiday. However, in the means of winter enjoyment, I decide that we can assume those holiday quite the same ones.

So, I can talk a lot about winter, other seasons and weather but I think I had already bored you. Here is another important thought: I do not think about such things just because they are simple and easy to discuss. It is because it seems a way to relax and enjoy myself in that way.

Post #11. Internship problems.

Hello everybody,

Today I would like to talk about the problem of internship during the pre-graduate or post-graduate period in the contemporary world. I think that that topic is very actual for everybody, especially for us, students, as we are going to face the same problems in a couple of years or less. So, the two main issues of internship are whether to pay for it or not and whether to do it or not at all. Does it really effective and worth to spend your time and powers on it, or not?

I have recently read two interesting essays on this topic, “Take This Internship and Shove It” by A. Kamenetz and “No Pay? Many Interns Say, “No Problem” by J. Halperin. These two essays have a slightly different point of view on the problem of paid or unpaid internship. In the first one, author states that in the USA the division between paid and unpaid is about 50/50. However, she states that unpaid internship has two main disadvantages: firstly, unpaid internships create a lot of literally free labor, which is a contribution to corporate welfare of companies. Of course, it might seem good for companies; nevertheless it is also seem like exploiting workers. The second disadvantage is that unpaid interns have fewer incentives to work more effectively. Here, I do completely agree with Kamenetz. Unfortunately (or fortunately), money is greater incentive than new knowledge, which could be earned during the internship. And great international financer W. Easterly wrote: “People respond to incentives”. That thought is simple and genius: the greater incentives person has - the more effective he or she would do.

On the contrary, in the other essay by Halperin, opposite thought is stated. She says that unpaid internship is very good, better than paid. However, she heavily relies on the couple opinions of the students what did not sound as a strong argument for me. It can be explained quite easily: if we apply some rule (in our case the rule would be that paid internship is good) to the set amount of people, we will always encounter some deviation from that rule. The bigger that amount is, the bigger the deviation is. So, if we take into account that there are huge amount of interns among the U.S., we could easily find some people who do not agree with the rule. But the majority disagrees, and that is the key decision.

Personally, I have never met a single person who would agree to do an unpaid internship. Notice: I do not consider paid internship being rewarded explicitly by money. The reward could be also something like recommendation letter or some other document. In my mind, those things worth much more than just money. Just a short example from my life: before entering NES, I was working as an intern in insurance company. Formally, it was a paid internship, because I received some money every month. But that amount was literally nothing, and the greatest reward was an official recommendation letter which allows me to continue my future career without internship again.

Of course, you may have another opinion on that issue and it would be interesting to hear it J

Post #10. The ways to communicate in modern world.

Hello everybody,

As I might have told you previously, I spend some of my time for my hobby - internet radio streaming. I joined some enthusiasts which keep the radio up, and do some broadcasting there, on very different topics with very different music at the background.  Just a few days ago, I and my colleague were doing a broadcast on a few topics. Mainly they were about modern Internet problems. Also, we slightly touched the topic of contemporary communication. We had a really great discussion over it, and I have decided to think more about it and to write here. So, I am going to tell you about the different ways of communication: messaging, talking over the phone and communication in the real life; their pros and cons in my opinion. 

The first method I want to talk about is everything connected with messaging. I mean all such ways here: chatting, e-mailing, social networking and so on and so forth. It was the first method to communicate over the Internet: it appeared in 1969, when the first two computers were connected together. Since then the amount of text messaging has dramatically grown. Almost every new Internet user set up an e-mail account firstly. Moreover, the vast part in c corporate communication is done through the mail. For instance, in NES, mail is the main way to communicate in the time, when there are no lessons; all more or less important messages are distributed through the mail system. Personally, I also use that way of communication in my everyday social life: almost all the social networks are based on text conversations. The minor part of text messages are SMS messages which really help to quickly share short news and important announcements between your friends and mates. Of course, such way of the communication has its pluses and minuses. In my view, the main benefits of such a communication are:

• It really the costless method. Writing messages is quick; you can write it everywhere, not worrying about the environment around you. For example, you can quickly respond to some news, even sitting on the very important meeting.
• When you are chatting, you have more time to think about what you write. In conversation, you have to think quickly, not to create silence. However, if you get a message, you can read it and respond after five or ten minutes, when you will be confident in what you are saying.
•  Messaging in contemporary world enables some additional interactivity. What do I mean: only during the chatting or mailing you can attach document, music, image or video to your message. Imagine doing it in the conversation – it is just impossible.

Of course, the messaging has some minuses, which makes it not the best way to communicate in my opinion:

•   Messaging mainly ignores direct usage of five senses: you can’t see, hear, taste. Smell or feel your partner. Instead of the, you see the messages and images, hear the music. That often creates a gap in the understanding between two persons.
•  The second minus flows from the first: messaging could not provide you with the full emotional range. That, unfortunately, leads to lies in the conversation: you can persuade your partner that you are smiling by sending him an appropriate emoticon; however, you may cry at the same time. It makes discussions about some personal problems through messaging dishonest and insufficient.

The second method I would like to discuss is voice communication. Mainly, today it is subdivided in two ways: over phone and over VOIP technologies as Skype and other programs which allows its users to hear themselves. Voice communication over phone appeared in quite distant past, when Bell invented his telephone and gained popularity after the Second World War. VOIP communication is not so old: it appeared only ten years ago, when average Internet connection speed reached the needed level. As a result, phone communication is more widespread: it is used in both corporate and daily life, while VOIP is mainly used for entertainment and only sometimes – in corporate needs. But I want to notice that VOIP has many benefits over usual phone, and it is predicted to start dominating in the nearest future. Like the text messages, voice communication has its pluses and minuses. Let me start from benefits:

•  The voice itself. Such way of communication directly provides access to the voice of your partner, what makes communication more vitalized, active and effective in disputing over something. Also, if we talk about VOIP, second sense opens to us: you can even see your partner, if he has a camera installed. That opportunity is often used by the relatives who live in a distant city and do not see each other for ages.
• Unlike the text messages, you can’t wait with the response for ages. It may seem the minus, but it is also a benefit, if applied to your partner. It is hard to create quick lies, so in voice communication the chance that your partner will be honest is much higher than in messaging.
• Transactional costs during the voice communication are still quite low. If you want to talk, you do not have to go anywhere in the most of cases, you just need to take out your phone or computer and make a call. It is quite simple – thus, it is a great benefit.

I have very strange attitude to phone calls: on the one hand, they have a lot benefits. On the other hand, I personally do not like it. Mainly it is because it’s minuses; partly because I just do not like to talk a lot. So, turning to the disadvantages, I can outline some of them:

• Despite the low transactional costs, you can’t make phone calls sometimes. For instance, again, on very important meeting, it would not be nice if you disturb everyone with speaking. The same situation appears in the vast part of public places: cinemas, libraries, etc, where silence is the norm.
• The second minus about phone communication is availability of your partner. If you are writing a text message to him, you can always wait for him to come and respond; however, if you phone him, you expect him to answer in roughly thirty seconds. Nevertheless, often some situations exist when your partner is not able to answer: for instance, if it is late at night or your partner just does not have a physical possibility to answer. That can lead to quite stupid situations, such as the following: you are waiting for some person, but you have not decided where to meet. Of course, you will try to phone him, but if his phone is off, you won’t find each other with high chances.
• Still, the senses that are other from the two I listed in the first point. You can’t feel your partner, can’t feel his smell and see his or her eyes, because even the best cameras can’t transfer accurate eyes motion, which is very important for me, for instance.

The third and the last method of communication in contemporary world I wanted to tell about is real life communication.  Today it is often called IRL, what means “in real life” and the word “communicated” is omitted. That way existed since the humanity appeared and mainly does not require any specific technical gadgets like phones or computers to be used. However, during the last few decades the role and amount of IRL communication has significantly decreased. Nevertheless it does not make such a way undervalued and unimportant for the major part of society – and for me personally too. Of course, I do not say that in real life communication does not have its minuses, but its pluses are much bigger in my opinion. Here are some of these advantages:

•  In real life communication uses all the five senses, and even the “sixth” sense. When you meet the person, you can clearly see his mimics, how he or she moves or reacts to your words. You also build some opinion relative to that person based on how he smells or sounds. You can also take his or her hand or do something similar to that, to see reaction of your partner.
• Therefore, in real life communication transfers the full emotional range between the persons, because the maximum possibilities are used. It is the hardest way to lie: to lie with your eyes. Actually, I think that eyes always lie, it is just impossible to hide something with them. However, I might be mistaken, and you could say that it is possible to lie with the eyes – I won’t argue, because I am not a psychologist.
• The last major plus of the “in real life” communication is that you are completely not dependent on technical resources needed for other types of communication.  You can come and see somebody even in case all the electricity on the planet goes off.

I do not see any major minuses in real life communication; however, I have put some of them here, to make my discussion disputable and argumentative:

• First of all, the transactional costs are sometimes extremely high. For instance, it is much easier to phone or write to a person who lives on the other side of the world rather than spending loads of money on the way to him, especially if your goal is just to have thirty minutes chat about nothing.
• Likewise voice communication, your partner is not always able to meet. I have a really good friend who lives in Moscow region, not so far from Moscow. However, we can meet only once a week; if we try to meet more, we won’t just literally have time on other things.
• The last disadvantage I would like to mention is that it is impossible to exit the conversation without problems. If you are chatting – you can go offline; if you are talking over the phone – you can just hang up the phone. Unlike these situations, if you are sitting and talking in the café it would be strange if you go away without a reason. It would definitely result in the deterioration in the relationships with the people you was talking with.

I think it is time to conclude everything and say a few words about the methods I did not mention.  Of course, there are some related methods such as writing paper letters and telegraph, but they are not used today and replaced with some modern ones. So, in conclusion, I would like to say that we should use all the ways I outlined but we should not forget about the importance and relevance of the third way – real life communication. It remained the most valuable for me throughout the years and I hope the same is happening to you.

P.S. I am sorry about the size of today’s post. I just had a lot of free time, and the topic was really interesting for me J

Hello everyone,

Today’s post is going to be about the differences and similarities of my native Russian culture and the American culture. At the beginning, I would like to notice that USA is very multinational country and there are no single nation named Americans, in fact. The current population has different roots, from Great Britain and France to even some African countries and some Native American territories. Unlike USA, Russia is less multinational state, and the major number of people is Russians – the nation formed centuries before. That is the first difference in cultures – they are built in different ways, like their nations.

So, the second main difference is that American culture is rather new, modern. It started to form only in 1880-s, with the discovery of Wild West. Before that period, Americans had very scarce similarities, so, there could not be any culture. Moreover, American culture has a lot of roots, because of many nations were forming single American nation.  On the contrary, Russian culture has very deep roots in time and definitely is not a mixture of different cultures. Of course, I do not argue that Russian culture was under the great influence of other countries throughout the centuries. However, it is a difference again: we can’t call mixture and influence the same things.

I’ve noticed that I am talking about very abstract and unclear differences: now I am going to move to more exact things. One of the things I have noticed during the communication with American and West European people is that western people are more autonomous then Russians. Usually, American man is used to make all the decisions by himself, and Russian makes decisions which are based on group’s decisions. The next point is that Americans have a lot of friends; however, they are not trying to build deep relationships between each other. In contrast, Russians tend to have less friends, but to build a deep and tight relationships with everyone. One important notice: I am not claiming that Russian approach is better and American is worse – it is two completely different ways, and we choose what we prefer.

Moreover, I decide that American culture of communication includes more informal relations with strangers. Conversely, Russian man would never smile to the stranger on the street. To see that, you just can visit Moscow subway – not a smiling face around. Here, I think is the thing we had better take from American culture. Life is beautiful, and there is no reason to be so moody everyday J

In conclusion, I want to say that Russian and American cultures are different, but Russian and Americans are always finding easy way to communicate. Maybe it is because two differences often tempt to become closer, to complete some exchange between each other.

P.s. I am still encountering problems with setting of heading. I am sorry for that)

Hello everyone!
Today I want to talk about the really important topic for everybody. Nowadays, our life is rapid and often we just do not have time to sleep normal 8 hours a day. However, we want to feel good and active at the same time. Just a few days ago I asked myself a question: how do I sleep less and feel great? I managed to find some literature about the theory and process of sleeping where I found a few great advice for not-sleepers. Now I want to present them for you.

Firstly, I need to tell a bit about the structure of our sleep. Literally, it can be divided into four phases:

1. The phase of light sleep, for instance when you fall asleep for 5 minutes on the lecture :)
2. Second phase - partial sleep. Your brain is trying to switch itself of, but the enviroment around you preventing brain from doing so. The example could be when you're sleeping in the subway.
3. Third phase - deep sleep. It is the most important part. During that phase your body receives a full rest and your brain is not working at all.
4. The last phase is called fast-phase sleep. Your brain is trying to reorganize your memories and as a result you see the dreams. This phase is also important; however, not like the third one.

So, as we see, we can remove first two phases, prolong the third one and keep the last but in the minumum quantities. It is a great solutions for a hard-workers like us :)

I tried a lot of advice, but not all had worked. So, what I discovered I need to do to achive that goal? 

• Permanent schedule of sleep. That means that you need to go to bed wake up strictly at one time no matter what is the day on the calendar! If you need to get up at 6 a.m. every working day, do so at weekends too. Also, you need to get up during the 4-th phase. How to find it? Just try experimenting with the time you get up within 10-20 minutes. When you feel that it is easy to get up, it is your time.
• You need to drink at least 2 liters of water during the day. That makes the recovery processes during 3-rd phase more efficient. Also, you need to refuse consuming alcohol and nicotine, as they are affeting in the opposite way.
• Physical activity during the day. The more you move, the more the temperature of your body is. That activizes your brain and body. Important: you need to make such an activity in the beginning of the day, to lower the temperature by evening; other way, you won't sleep.
• The vast quantity of light needed. The light destroys melanin, the enzyme that makes you feel asleep. So try to be on the sun or under the lamp as much as you can during the day.
• If you have a free time after the lunch, try to sleep, but no more than 30 minutes. During that time you will enter 3-rd phase, which gives a good rest, and your stomach will stop sending the annoying signals which makes your brain feel asleep.

Also, there are some more practical advices who still can not sleep after following previous:

• Your bed is created only for sleep. If you will do such an activities as homework there, your brain will forget the main aim of the bed. In other case, going to bed will automaticlly mean sleep.
• Do not think about anything before you go to bed. Just end with your things and sit at the sofa for 20 minutes before sleep, doing nothing.
• Oppositely to previous stack of advice: sleep in full darkness. The production of melanin will rise and you'll sleep deeper and better.
• Try to keep a temperature of the room cool. That will decrease your body temperature, so your level of activity will fall down too.
• And very inportant advice: if you can not fall asleep for 20 minutes after applying all these recomendations, do not try more. Get up and do something, then try again in an hour. Iterate this as many times, as possible.

I hope these advice will really help you to sleep better. If you have some additional ideas, please write them in comments :)

P.S. Of course, I have not invented all methods by myself. All of them could be found on the net with more detailed description. I just tried to aggregate the most important, make them clearer and share my own expierence. 

Hello everybody,
Today I wanted to make a few notes about my English 201 class and about my progress there. As you may know, this blog is a part of my English class too, so I may refer to my previous posts too.

Firstly, I would like to say that at the beginning this course seemed very unusual to me(also, like any other), because in high school the methods of  education were rather different. For instance, we focused mostly on classwork and all process heavily relied on the teacher, not on students ourselves. Also, the number and the length of lessons do make difference. Here, in university, English is taught in another way. The vast part of what we do is homework and different assignments now. I was attending school that had a language specialization, thus we had a lot of lessons. Currently, I have only two lessons pro week; however, it is not less difficult too study. I just wanted to evaluate that from my point of view two main principles of English 201 is to study by yourself, that means that everything relies on you mainly, and the second principle that we are attending that course mainly not to improve our language but to improve our reading, writing and oral skills.

For that moment, I think I've done quite a good progress in the skills I've outlined below. Of course, I should not forget about technical language: it has improved in a result of huge amount of English, too. Talking about reading and writing skills, I would like to notice that I did not know the standard 3-paragraph essay model at all, for instance. Learning that concept helped me not only in English course but also to write some essays in Economics and other f/w assignments. What I wanted to notice about readings we do, is that they are really interesting and sometimes touching. So they make myself to think about some problems, too. In addition, I've used some facts from "The Hidden Life of Garbage", the one of the essays we discussed at class, in my work on other subject. Oral skills are very important, too. Nevertheless, we had not already had any global oral projects or assignments, so I simply can not evaluate my progress in it. Though for tomorrow we have to prepare the *first draft* of our first speech in this course, so right afterwards finishing that post I am going to start preparing for it.

Actually, as I said previously and mentioned it in mid-term survey, grammar and vocabulary projects are not that important to me. However, thinking objectively, I do need them. The reason for such a dilemma is that grammar and vocabulary are my weak points. So I can read all the David's comments about grammar in my  formal writing assignment, fix all of them, move the most important in the grammar log and so on, but as soon as I upload grammar log to my.nes, I guarantee, I will forget everything. For me, the only way to improve grammar is to do a huge amount of exercises on it, that is what I was doing through all the 11 Grade at school and continue now, when I have a piece of free time, course. Vocabulary log is a good project itself; the only problem for me is to create an example of word usage from my head.

So, my goals for the next half of the semester remains quite the same: improve my reading ang writing skills, and separately overcome difficulties I have in speech. I think David does everything he can, so I should not be lazy and toughly work on myself. It also would be great, if you share your expierence in comments and correct me if I am wrong at something.

P.S. I really put my hands down trying to set a heading for my posts. I don't know what is the problem.

Hi everyone,
Today I want to tell you about the event that took place on that weekend. It was called "Dedication to students". Our great mates from Year 2 managed to organize everything that we did not have to think about such things. So we just paid some money and finally participated.

The event took place in a cottage next to the Moscow. It lasted for 2 days, including nights. As planned, there was a role-playing game in the beginning. I liked it very much, in spite of the fact that I was "killed" in the beginning by some "gangster". After that, we had a disco, which lasted due the middle of the night.

Next day, we were split into teams and were presented with some team-building activities. Each team had its own tutor, who were helping us to know each other better. I think the tutors were great, as they did their job perfectly! I acknowledged a lot of new facts about my classmates and made a few new friends. Also, the whole course became a one big family to me. That really makes me happy!

After the team-building activities, we had some free time. Actually, I slept during it, because I did not used not to sleep for the half of the night. But then the key part took place. Everybody were invited to the street and blinded with the pieces of cloth. Then, when we formed a row, I heard a strange noise in front of me. A few seconds later the lights came out and I started becoming wet. Tutors' surprise was to slush us with a champagne! That was funny and everybody started feeling the atmosphere of the party.
Finally, there was a great disco, that lasted for the whole night :)

In conclusion, I would like to say that it was one of the greatest events in my life :)

Hello everybody,
Today I want to tell about one event, which took place a couple of weeks ago and remained very memorable to me. I hope if you get interested in it and will join me next time.

Actually, a few years ago socially active HSE students founded two organizations: "HSE event" and HSTV(High School of Television). The common goal for both organizations is to provide HSE students and students from other universities with social activities and different events. Last year, the concept of bike night was created, and an expermental first-time bike night took place. It was rather successful, so this year, they managed to gain more popularity to this kind of event. As a result of good *marketing* I have heard about that event. I am a great bike-lover, so I had decided to participate this time. Let me tell you the sense of the "bike night". Approximately at 10 p.m. all the participants take their own bikes and meet at some Moscow square. When everybody is ready, column of bikers is being formed and that column start moving along the route, which is planned long before event. So, this action lasts for the whole night with the short pauses, just because everybody needs some rest. At the end of the route, the whole column already sleeps and wants to see only their bed.

I decided to go there with some of my friends. This year, the meeting point was on Bolotnaya square, near the Kremlin. While everybody were arriving, we were presented a fire and dance show, some funny competitions and a free can of Red Bull, in case we will start falling asleep during the night. At least, we started moving along our route. The problem was that me and my friends are keen on biking, so we moved in the head of column, much faster then its end. So we had to stop every 20 minutes to wait for others. Our route lead us round boulevard circle, then through Arbat, moving to Lughniki and so on. It was quite easy to ride in the first half of the night. Approximately at 3 a.m. it started showering rapidly. Fortunately, our procession was next to the bridge, so we managed to hide under it and wait till the rain stops. Afterwards, we were blowing Chinese torches, which we had with ourselves. It was an amazing view, when dozens of torches flown up to the nightly sky. It was 4 a.m. when we reached Gorky Park. Everybody already were exhausted, so we rested there for about half an hour, and then headed to Sparrow Hills. Sparrow Hills are located much higher than Gorky Park. In the result, we faced a huge ascent without any stamina. I will never forget this run. I wished I died while climbing up :). However, we made it! The whole route was 54 kilometers. A few days after event I was not able to walk or seat. But it was worth it. At least, I met some new friends there) I will definetely participate next time.

Also, I am seeking for other events organized by HSTV, as the organization was at high level and I have not got any reasons to claim. If you heard about some, please tell me. I will be very grateful)

P.S. I do not know if it is a problem inside Blogger system, but I could not set a heading for that post. 

Post #4. Peculiar continuation of the pervious post. Moscow.

Hello everybody,

Today I would like to expand the topic mentioned in the previous post. As you could remember, last time I talked about Moscow Subway, which is a special place for me. And when I was thinking of today's pos topic, I decided to tell not only about subway, but about the whole city. Actually, you are not going to see a precise and deep description of city look, because I want to focus on description of Moscow problems, unique features and controversials.

As I wrote in my very first post, I was born in Moscow and lived here since then, so I think I know the city quite good. In addition, I have visited a lot of countries and towns, thus I have something to compare with. Firstly, I'd like to say that I have never seen such a diversified city. What do I mean: you can find any style of  any epoch in Moscow. Starting  from 12-th century reconstructions in Kolomenskoe or Izmailovo, then going on with 15-th century Kremlin, 16-th century churches, basilicas and monasteries like Novodevichii monastery. There are a lot of 19-th century bulidings in the center of Moscow, like city bank buliding. Then goes the period of Stalinism-style architecture, which reflected in seven gorgeous skyscrapers (MSU central bulding on Sparrow Hills). In 1960-1980 city was outlined with boring apartment bulidings. However, these bulidings sovled the problem of the lack of accomodation in Moscow. In the late 1980-s new fancy types started to appear in the suburbs. For instance, I live in such a buliding. Finally, you can find an extremely modern hi-tech skyscrapers im Moscow-City district. The desribed styles amazingly exist within each other: that is unique for Moscow, I think.

In the same way the poverty co-exists with the ultimate richness and people's distress co-exists with fun an enlightment of streets. In my opinion, you should be a very cinic person not to pay attention to what sometimes happening on the streets. Also, you sholud take
everything easy. For example, it is normal that subway cashier in Moscow can easily be rude to you. It is not only 
about the cashier: everybody on the streets seem very angry. On the other hand, you can easily see funny persons,
who entertain pedestrians just for fun. I can continue with examples, but for better understanding and feeling it is
better to walk through the center of Moscow by your own and see it with your own eyes.

If I succeed in interesting you in Moscow you can ask for interesting places to visit in comments :)

 

Post #3. A place special for me.

It might be very strange and weird, but a place that is special for me is Moscow Metro. I would like firstly to explain such a unusual choice and then write more description of it.

Since I was 13 I have used Moscow subway almost everyday in the means of transport. Every time I went for a walk with my friends or to some event I used the subway, it connected my school, my home and university. Also, last year I was spending two hours every Friday on the station finishing my homework for Social studies teacher, as it was too cold outside. Separately, I was always interested in any transport systems so I have spent many hours learning how does subway work.

Let me describe Moscow subway a bit. It is very huge system, with many different objects as stations, tunnels, collectors, crossovers and so on. Metro have been built since 1935 so the style and technology of constructing varied. For instance, the first stations(13 stations, from Culture Park to Sokolnyky on red line, and from Smolenskaya to Alexander's Garden on light blue line) were built not so deep, they have quite simple style. The stations built from 1940 to 1960 are the most impressive. They are just gorgeous, with mosaics, paintings and sculptures. Located quite deep underground, these stations have high halls and wide platforms. Now there are mainly located on circle line. The next "generation" of stations was opened in period from 1962 to 1980. In my point of view, these are the ugliest. Completely no design, dirty walls, thick columns, unnoticeable exits to the ground. Actually, I do not know why designers failed to create nice stations in this period. The next period was from 1980 to 1990-s. It is mainly stations of grey line and some from others. They are the most comfortable and appeal for me: simple but strict design, soft lighting, reasonable size, well-located exits, clean platforms. Maybe I like them the most because I live near one of these stations. And the most interesting stations are contemporary one's. Designers today managed to combine modern elements with old style design methods. For instance, station Slovenian Boulevard, opened in mid-2000's has many beautiful sculptures and decorative elements, however it also has modern lights and other elements. I would shortly describe modern stations as a great example of contemporary art.

Subway also sounds uniquely. It's always full of noise generated by people and trains. Moscow Metro is known as the loudest in the world. But with time, you get used to this noise and do not pay attention to it.

Also, subway has a very special smell. It is so special, that I can not even describe it, like you can not describe the smell of mint, for example. That smell became just essential to me, it is neither pleasant nor unpleasant smell - just smell of the subway. 

Post #2. A piece of thoughts about some senseless politics

Hello everybody,

Firstly, I would like to point out that I have started numbering my posts as it would be easier to navigate throug them in the future. Hope it will really help.

This week I would like to talk about politics a bit. If you do not know already, "The March of Millions" was held 15th September in Moscow. It was organised by Russian off-system opposition forces, which was lead by the organisation known as CVK or CCO(Coordinational Council of Opposition) and also by the official opposition(such policital parties as CPRF, LDPR and FR). However, there is a very strange observation I made: there is no single list of things which people prosesting want to change except one: they want United Russia and current goverment to leave the chambers of Kremlin and State Duma(Parliament).

Every single group create their own lobby, which want its own ways of solving problems to be applied. For instance, Communist Party's goal is nationalizing heavy, oil and gas industries, to establish higher control rules over market-based economy, though some liberal guys like Navaliny want to deny any pressure on markets at all.

So, we are facing a paradox. How could such a different people unite together? Remember Russian Empire just before its fall. In 1916-1917 there was a wide spectrum of policital forces, from radical left to right, and they had never got united together. In February 1917, the Revolution was made only by worker class with support of liberals. In oppose, in October that year, Great October Revolution was made only by communists, and, much more, it was against liberals.

Thus there should be another factor which unites different oppositional forces today. I have some thoughts about it too. I decide that there is some lobby standing behind all that. We do not know those people, but they are definitely very powerful and wealthy. Of course, all oppositional movements were planned long before took place in real life. I remember one thing that could be an argument for that. Let me take oppositional movement "White Curve" which *unites* pepole, who do not suppot current government(read:opposition). That movement appeared in February 2012, however, the domain name for movement's website was registered in early 2011 by unknown registrator from offshore country(I do not remember exactly, something like Micronesia Islands in Pacific). So it was planned, months before, and idea did not appeared occasionally inside opposition groups.

In conclusion, I would say that I do not support both sides, neither the system, nor opposition. I just want a brighter future for Russia and am going to help my country live better.

Again, I will be very grateful if you write your opinion on this.

Hello, World!

Hello all,
I am happy to introduce all my future blog readers here. I suppose I will make about 2-3 posts on different topics and issues pro week.

Firstly, I suppose I need to tell you some things about myself. Let me give a short biography. So, my name is Alexander, and at the moment I am sixteen years old. I was born in Moscow and have lived here since the present moment. At 6 years, I have gone to school, which profile is foreign languages. So I am quite good at English and know some German. I started thinking about future economic education a few years ago, because I realized that those things are really interesting for me. To enroll to HSE-NES programm I had to work hard in the last academic year. Hopefully, I passed all the state exams with good grades and applied here.

My scope of intrests is very wide and includes not only economical and financial issues. When a few years ago I should had whether choose economical or other profile, I was seriously thinking of becoming a specialist in Comuter Sciences. Now computers and other technical things are my main hobby. Also, I am interested in such things as polictics, international relations, contemporary history, transport systems, psychology and so on. I think I will write about all the scopes of interests in future posts.

I just want to tell about music separately here. I am very fond of good music, especially of rock and sub-metal genres. In the result of it, I even bought the guitar a couple of months ago and started learning to play it by myself. There are some progress in it, as my playing friends say.

I am glad that I was given a chance to attend English Academic Writing course. Writing critical and other narratives in English is a weak point of mine. In school, we spent a lot of time on reading, listening and vocabulary and less on writing and speaking. Personally, I would like to notice that I also sometimes have a psyhological barrier that makes it hard for me to speak. I hope that in class we will spend a great deal of time on speaking too. Of course, writings are not less important. However, I am very sure that everything will be good as I already have a great teacher, David Atterberry, and very nice group. For me, it is real pleasure to attend lessons and to work there.

So, I hope you have enjoyed reading my first post. It will be awesome, if you give some feedback in the comments.