15. My last blog in 2012.

There are only three days (de-facto two) of studying, tomorrow there will be a Final English Test. I will write an essay and I'll have only hour to do it.
And now about the results of English course English 201.
I think I improved my writing skills by writing essays(tomorrow I'll know if I'm right or not). Now I know what I should do if it is necessary for me to write a compare&contrast essay or an argumentative essay. Also I improved my grammar and vocabulary, reading David's commentaries. I know some new grammar rules writing the grammar log.Now I know 40 words more than before vocabulary log task. I hope that I remember these 40 words.Blogging is good for writing skills' development. I knew some new words, translating them in order to write my thoughts. And it's very interesting to read your classmates' blogs.
To sum up, I'd like to write that this course is very useful for me, it's really important to have a native speaking instructor when you learn foreign language because you hear right pronunciation, plunge into the atmosphere of English. And it is very important for English skills' improving.

14.Sleep

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, sleep is the natural periodic suspension of consciousness during which the powers of the body are restored. Today in train Telman and I spoke about sleep. About normal time of sleeping and reality. One man who sat opposite us sad that it’s normal time for sleep in the age of about twenty years about forty five minutes!!! My first reaction was, ‘What have you said?’ But he really said that normal time for sleeping is about forty five minutes. Later about five minutes he told some things why it is normal to sleep about 45 minutes and bad to sleep more time. I don’t remember completely his arguments. He also said that he was a soldier, so this fact about sleep he knew when he was a soldier, and this fact was proved by Soviet and American experiments on people. But despite his words I think that it’s unreal to sleep only forty five minutes a day. I think I will try this system of sleep because of great amounts of work sometimes I have to do. But I hope I do it because I want to sleep more than 6 hours, but it’s too hard in NES. That’s the end because I want to sleep and tomorrow it will be a difficult day because of Final Project presentation for my English class and because of writing exam of my algebra course. Oh, I’ll have about four with a half hours to sleep. Not good. But not bad. Sometimes I have less time for watching dreams.

13.

I spent a lot of time writing my first draft of argumentative essay. But it was really interesting! I knew a lot of new things about a topic which I chose, about the Large Hadron Collider and read a lot of interesting articles connected with black holes and strangelets, which are little fragments of the strange matter. So, the best thing in writing this essay is that I learnt a lot of new things, and, of course, improved my skills of searching necessary information. My largest weakness in the first draft was badly developed citations. In the second draft I changed my citations to format, which, I wish, is right. Another weakness in my first draft was bad thesis statement. I hope I improved it. Also I read my essay several times and tried to correct mistakes. Also I used advises from peer review to improve my work. This essay is very different from previous ones. At first, this essay was based on arguments. It was too hard to find enough info to write it. At second, it was hard to choose interesting topic because the choice was too big and to choose from a big variety of opportunities sometimes is more difficult then to choose from several ones. At third, this essay was based on serious sources, while previous ones were based mostly on personal experience.

12.

Oscar Wilde is the author of quotation "Everything popular is wrong". I found this phrase a couple of days ago. And thank about it. I found this phrase is a good definition of wrong priorities that people have today.  We read in magazines and watch on TV about lifestyle which isn't the best variant. For example, a lot of bad habits are consequences of copying popular styles. Like “cool boys always smoke”. “Alcohol is the best way to relax,” is a good example of wrong popular opinion.

And some words about actual things.Today a lot of people talk about doomsday which will be at 21 of December in accordance with Maya’s calendar. But scientists who have deciphered this calendar haven’t counted leap years, which were not counted in Maya’s calendar. So, because of existence a lot of leap years and extra days which haven’t counted, doomsday was about a half of year ago(according to Maya). Some weeks ago one Dalai Lama said that at December, 21 the Earth will come into substance which isn’t proved electricity, so for some weeks we’ll live in darkness. He said that people should buy a lot of food, kerosene lamps and candles in order to survive.  But we are alive because of electric signals. Our heart and our brain works by electrical impulses. So there couldn’t been any logical ways of survival in such conditions. And there couldn’t been such substance because of physics laws.

People watch TV and trust in advertises. Advertisement is a way to create wrong sense of happiness. “Buy new mobile phone and you’ll be in trend. In trend = in date = happy.” “You’ve got old jeans – you are not cool. Buy jeans from new collection and you will be cool.” “You have little time to spend it with children? No problems – just buy yoghurt “Chudo” and make your children happier.”

It’s all for today, because I’d like to sleep. Maybe I’ll write more about this topic later.

11. Internships.

As a homework for an English class I've read two texts about non-paid internships. I am agree with the author of first text Anya Kamenetz who thinks that internships, especially when they are unpaid, are not good for students. First of all, I'm agree with her opinion that unpaid internship isn't really a job, only simulation. As she writes, there is't strong connection between well-paid job and internship. In my opinion, work should be paid. Secondly, I think that if students work as qualified workers, they should receive salary. It's a kind of discrimination when students work without salary despite the fact that they do a lot of things which are useful for company when they work. And unpaid internship is possible only for students' which families have enough money to pay for education. In the second text Jennifer Halperin reflect the views of students who liked unpaid internships. But Anya Kamenetz writes that students, who take part in unpaid internships like their work more than people, who receive salary for their work. And there's an empirical  observation that people who accept to do something like unpaid internships(something not very easy and without any reward) more than people who decline it.
So I think that unpaid internships are not good for students.

10. Globalization.

Today I was on football match "Spartak Moscow" - "Barcelona", which was in the biggest Russian stadium "Luzhniki". It so happened that I met an Italian, who sat(or rather stood) near me . An Italian! In Russia! On football match which is between Russian and Spanish teams!!! What is it? Globalization...

Today world is a global village. It isn't too hard to socialize with a person from another country who lives far away. And it becomes easier to meet a foreign man or woman in Russia. And every year percent of people who go to another city or country because of different reasons grows. Different cultures mixes, you can find people from different countries, who speak different language at one place. But globalization isn't migration, it's international cultural, political and economical integration. Migration like standardization of different processes is a result of globalization. Other results of this process are, for example, global division of labor and global specialization. Globalization makes every country dependent on others.

Some people think that globalization is good, others think that it is bad. There are groups of people which are known as "anti-globalists" who doesn't like globalization and thinks that it's very harmful process. I think that globalization is essential part of world development. It's normal process and we should use it. For example, now it's possible for a lot of people to go to other cities or countries in order to study or work.Or just see football matches with teams from other countries or continents.

9.Russia and the USA :differencies.

Somewhere I've read such phrase: "Americans are strange, because they don't know who will be their next president." Of course, this phrase belongs to Russian author. There are a lot of differences between these two countries. 

Politics: the USA is democratic country, and there is no real democracy in Russia. No freedom of the press, no freedom of the TV. The "Law about rallies", "Black list of sites, which contain illegal content" and others strong circumscribe freedom of people, freedom of speech. And everybody knew before the elections that Vladimir Putin would be the next president. The next thing is corruption. There is a little corruption in the USA and a lot of corruption in Russia. The USA is 22nd in the Corruption Perceptions Index and Russia is only 154th(from 178). Markets in the USA are more liberal than in Russia. It's hard to start your own business in Russia because of different barriers and corruption. The sector of underground economy in Russia is much bigger than in the USA.  If we compare GDP of Russia and the USA, GDP of the USA is about 15,2 trillion dollars and Russia's GDP is between 2,2-2,4 trillion dollars. Another difference is that the capital of the USA is Washington, the financial center is New York, the scientific center is Los-Angeles. Education, in Russia Moscow is both political, scientific and financial center. Despite the fact that American system of education is the best in the world and Russian is worse than American and European, high education in the USA is paid and in Russia everyone has a chance to have one free high education. Traditions. Of course, traditions in Russia are completely different with traditions in USA. For example, Christmas is more important than New Year in the USA but New Year is more important than Christmas.

I considered only a number of differences between Russia and the USA. Of course, there are a lot of differences but I concentrated only on several things that are most noticeable, in my opinion.

8. Football time

In this time it was hard for me to find a topic of my blog. I decided that I would write about football in the second time, because now I'm waiting the time when today's UEFA Champions League matches will start. 

Some minutes later Real Madrid will play with Borussia Dortmund. Real, as I have written, is one of my favorite teams, my favorite European football team. Last game was unhappy for 'los galacticos', they were beaten by Dortmund's team. I hope that today CriRo&Co will win. One of problems is that striker Karim Benzema can't play because he injured. But Higuain was in good conditions last games, so he could surprise us by beautiful goal as he did two or three weeks ago. I hope that CriRo7 will find his game today. It will be very interesting game, because the winner of it will qualify in next round with very high probability.

And tomorrow I will see game Spartak Moscow vs Benfica. Spartak should win or tie in order to have chances to qualify to the next round. There are problems with strikers(Emenike and Welliton can't play) and goalkeepers(first and second keepers are injuried, third keeper Artem Rebrov will be the Spartak's guardian). But I hope that Spartak will play very well and win this very hard game, which could be the most important game of this autumn.

7. First education results.

The half of our first university semester is over,so there are some impression about classes. In this post you'll read about my English class.

In August I hoped to greatly improve my English. I don't correctly estimate my progress, but I think that there is a progress in my English. First of all, I improved my communicative skills, the greatest reason of it is our instructor - native English speaker. It became more easy for me to write essays and to formulate thoughts in writing. And a great progress is that now I understand English speech better than two months later - at the first lesson it was hard for me to understand David's speech, but now it isn't a problem for me to understand his speech or English speech in films or in song. 

The most difficult for me in this course is writing assignments, but there are very useful. A blog assignment and reading assignments are interesting and not as hard as writing.

For this two months I've learned strategies of understanding the meaning of words, some grammatical rules, new words and rules which are necessary to follow when you write essays.

And I hope I will improve my English in the second half of semester more than in this half. 

P.S. I think it will be cool if some of our assignments will include video materials(for example, watch a video at home and discuss it in class).

6.Oh, football!

In Friday, October, 12, after lessons I and Telman decided to go the cafeteria in HSE building which is situated on Myasnitskaya Street. When we went there, we met Roma and Ildar, students of our faculty. Then they told that they had one free ticket to football match Russia vs Portugal. Of course, I wanted to go to such game!
At 6 pm we were at the stadium. Weather was nasty (it was rainy and coldly), but seats were under overhang, so we didn't feel that it rained. There were a little people in that time. But in 7 pm when the game started, tha stadium Luzhniki was full. There were about 75 thousands of people.We were in the fan-sector, it's too far from the playing field, so we didn't completely see faces of players, but the action and players' numbers we saw, we distinguished Ronaldo from Nani, for example.

The match started from a number of Portuguese attacks. Russian team defended. Fans cried 'Forward, Russia!', 'Only Russ, only victory!'. But on the 6th minute it was a great Russian counterattack, Roman Shirokov set Alexandr Kerzhakov clear and the forward scored from the one-on-one. It was the first and the last opportunity of our team in the first half. In 20 minute there was a substitution in Portuguese team: lateral Fabio Quentrao was substituted by Miguel Lopez because of Quentrao's injury. Portuguese attacked, Russians defended - good characteristic of first half. After the brake both Portuguese and Russian team had some chances to score, but we saw no more goals. Ronaldo's game wasn't very good, maybe because of his injury (before the match there had been no information about his possibility of playing because he had been injured in the last Real's match).

I'm really happy that I was on the stadium and I supported my national team. I cried too loudly, so I lost my voice. In my opinion, this victory is a great success of our team, because it's a luck that we won.Because Russian team defended too much, and a referee didn't appoint several free-kicks for Portuguese. Russian left back Dmitriy Kombarov was rally good, he didn't let Nani do anything. Also our defenders and midfielders controlled Cristiano Ronaldo the whole match, it's a side of success too.

And now there is a hope that Russian national team will qualify to the FIFA World Cup 2014. Capello, we hope in you!

5. Water-ice adventure

Novosibirsk Reservoir or as it usually called the Ob sea is very big artificial lake on the Ob river. It takes about 15 minutes to get to the shore of the Ob sea from my house.

This happened seven or eight years ago. One spring day I with my friend Vlad went to the sore of this sea. The whole lake was covered with ice, but there was a spring, so ice started to melt. And there were big water pools, which were hidden under ice. If you step on this ice, which is reliable in your opinion, you risk to go under cold water. We decided to go for small "island", which wasn't far away from the shore. When we go to this island everything was OK. But when we decided to go home, we found that the ice wasn't strong and there was an opportunity to become wet. We got the wind up. There were no other people we could ask for help. Every our step was careful.

When the shore became near, ice under my boot cracked and my leg immersed in ice-cold water. I started to run...

I run to the shore for couple of minute that seems like hours. I came home with wet boots, but, fortunately, I wouldn't catch a flue after that accident.

4.Football

I'd like to write about football (or "soccer" as it called in the USA).

I’ve decided to touch this topic because on Tuesday (October, 2nd) my favorite football club Spartak played the second match in the UEFA Champions’ League group stage. Unfortunately, it lost. Now Spartak is the last in its group, so it must win at least 2 or 3 matches (from 4) in order to continue participate in the best European football competition.

Version of Spartaks' emblem made by fans

Emblem of Real Madrid

And now about football. Why I like it? Sincerely, I don’t exactly now. But it’s a fact-I like football. I like to play football and to watch it. 

My favorite football clubs are Spartak Moscow (I’ve been fan of it since I was 10 or 11) and Real Madrid or Real Madrid Club de Football which is full name of this fantastic team. I like its attacking style and players’ collection, and now Real’s coach is Jose Mourinho, in my opinion, one of the best coaches in the world.  London’s football club Chelsea is interesting for me too. There are an unusual coach and perspective young players.

 My favorite football player (from sportsmen who is playing football now) is Cristiano Ronaldo (now he plays in Real). I’m marvel at him: his dribbling skills are amazing, his sprints are very quick and his shots are accurate and strong.

Maybe lately I’ll write more about Spartak or Real. Or about UEFA Champions’ League. But not in this post.

P.S. Tomorrow I hope to see Real Madrid’s game against Ajax from Amsterdam. And I expect good game and beautiful Real’s victory!

3.A place that is special for me

The education building

I'd like to write about place where I was studying in 10 and 11 grades. Specialized Educational and Scientific center of Novosibirsk State University(SESC NSU or SESC as it usually called). It's unusual school, because you live in dormitory and your teachers are professors from NSU. Also there aren't just school lessons-there are lectures and seminars like in university.

Dormitory

It was based in 1963 by outstanding Soviet mathematician and physicist Mikhail Lavrentiev as a place to gather talented children from Siberia for further studies at NSU.




SESC NSU is situated in Academ-town, a part of Novosibirsk. Academ-town is like a big park, because there're a lot of trees and fresh air. And you can see squirrels form SESC's windows. In Academ-town are situated a lot of different researching institutes which are included in Siberian Part of Russian Researching Academy.Institute of Nuclear Physics is one of the biggest. Experts from this scientific center are valued worldwide.

Academ-town air photo

It's a special place for me, because I've spent never-to-be-forgotten 2 years there,met a lot of interesting people,studied a lot of interesting things. I've found the best girl in the world ibidem.
So I'm happy that I've decided to move to SESC NSU from my previous school, which was very good too, but it's another story.

2. Reading

  One of my hobbies is reading books and I'd like to write about it.
  There are amounts of books you can choose from, so it's to hard to find books, which are interesting personally for you.
  I can't exactly define my favorite genres, thus I'll list my favorite writers and books. I like to read books,which have been written by this people: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His detective stories are excellent. Alexandre Dumas and his three musketeers were remembered for me,because it was the first non-children novel I've read.Lately I read it once again and it's continuation and I grasp that it's very interesting novel. The Oscar Wilde's story "The portrait of Dorian Grey" I think one of the best literature fictions I've read. Tolkien's trilogy and prediction"Hobbit" is a masterpiece and I was disappointed trying to find another such beautiful fantasy.Yes, there are some good fantasies like "Eragon"by Christopher Paoliny.I like to read stories full of meaning and interesting ideas by Ray Bradbury and exciting texts of Herbert Wells. Reading Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" could change your ideology.
  I enjoy reading modern literature too. From modern authors I' d like to write about these people: Dan Brown. His thrillers are amazing! It's really interesting to read his novels. I became interested in cryptography after reading "Digital fortress" and read more about Large Hadron Collider after "The Da Vinci code". Book "The lost symbol" inspired me to learn more about the Freemasons. And others his books are very interesting for me. Stig Larsson. His trilogy"Millennium" is very interesting detective novel! I read three books at one week, 'cause I couldn't do anything while I was reading this very exciting story! It's hard to separate fantasy from reality in James Rollins books. Some of them are really good,such as "Amazonia" or "Subterranian" or "Sandstorm", but I don't like his latest stories because they are too dark and pessimistic. If you like to read something serious, u should choose Paulo Coelho. It's very interesting to read his stories and you could think about sense of every story for a lot of time.
  Also I like reading popular economics books such as "Freeconomics". It's interesting for me.
  Now I'm reading the 5th book of series of novels "A song of Ice and Fire", written by George Martin. The genre of these novels is epic fantasy, but when u read such colorful description of Martin's world, u can imagine that isn't a fantasy and it's real world! Well-designed characters of heroes make a sense that u really know this people. Due to specific manner of storytelling u can look at the same events from the different points of view.
  It's very hard and,maybe, unreal to write about all writers and stories, which are interesting for me, but I've tried to write about the most impressive for me in this blog.
  In conclusion I'd like to quote George Martin:"If you read books,you live hundreds of lifes and if you don't read books, you live only one time"

Apple's phenomenon

     After some hours people all over the world will see new model of one of the most popular things, created in 20th century, iPhone 5.
     Different people have different opinions, some people are really fans of iProducts, and another people say that it's silly to be fond of brand. Everyone knows that iPhone is different from other mobiles.No other market event can cause such stir, as new Apple’s product presentation.
    It's interesting to see iPhone, which is totally developed without Steve Jobs. In my opinion, he was the most important factor of Apple's inconceivable success in 2006-2011. And it's his merit that word "apple" is associated with company more often than with the green fruit.

    Now Apple is the most expensive company in the world with the capitalization more than $ 600 billion. You might be an unreal optimist ten years ago to say that it would be world's leader in market's hi-tech segment in 2012. And today's presentation can answer to the question "Is it real company's praise or not?" Because a lot of traders think that stock prices are bigger than it should be.

    And it's really interesting to observe the change of Apple's stock price after the presentation. I don't think that iSpecialists invent something radically new, so I don’t expect the rise of stock prices. But, like anyone,I could be wrong. Let’s see it tonight. Or read about presentation and its consequences tomorrow.

1.Some words about me

Hi! I’m Alexandr Bashkeev. Now I’m a student of Higher School of Economics and of New Economics School at the same time.

I was born in a small town in Tomsk’s region on November, 7^th, but two years lately my family moved to Novosibirsk. 

Novisibirsk is always named as “Siberian capital”. It’s the biggest city in Russia after Moscow and St.Petersburg with a population of about 1’500’000.

NOVOSIBIRSK

From 1 till 9 form I was studying in lyceum №130, 10 and 11 forms I was studying at the Specialized Educational Scientific Center of Novosibirsk State University.

But two weeks ago I moved to Moscow in order to study at one of the most interesting economics bachelor program in Russia:HSE/NES BA program.
My favorite subjects in school were maths and physics. I’ve taken part in different olympiads. In 2010 I took part in Russian Physics Olympiad, then in November of that year decided to learn economics. Some months later I understood that economics is more interesting for me than physics and I decided to become an economist. And in April 2011 I won the most important economics olympiad in Russia – Russian Economics Olimpiad(3rd place). Year later (in this year) I became a winner in this Olympiad with the 4th result. And I faced a difficult choice: what faculty I should choose. After three months I apply for this program and I really happy that I choose it.
When I’ve got some free time I enjoy playing and watching football (not American football, but soccer), watching movies, reading, spending time with friends, programming and listening to music.
My expectations about English course: I hope that I will improve my English level, especially speaking and I will do everything that is needed to archive this goal.