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.