In the airport A man is trying to board an intercontinental flight. He is going to check three pieces of luggage, but the airport policy allows to check only two 20kg bags and one piece of carry on luggage. As far as his third bag is too big to put it in an overhead compartment or under the seat, he had to be charged extra for his third suitcase. He became rather angry because of that, and said to the airport worker, that he don't understand, why the tickets coast next to nothing, but then they charge every small thing and it costs an arm and a leg. He is very angry, because the charge for an overweight luggage is even more than his round trip ticket.

Chinese phonetics I have been working on Chinese phonetics for three months. How is it possible that all of people have approximately the same body structure, but use their speech system so different ways. Every sound (even if at first it looks familiarly) should be pronouncing another way, than I'm used to. We even breathe and be silent not the same way! I would never think that the differences are so fundamental. It's so hard, interesting and exciting at the same time.

The grey rain It's raining for the entire day. Everything is grey and gloomy. Raindrops are knocking monotoniously on umbrellas and on windows. A street dog is sitting sadly under the tree, trying to shelter from the rain. The rain is going, and going, and going... Its monotoniously knocking makes me lazy and sleepy. It looks like the Autumn has come already, although it's still the middle of August.

Ants and stilts To prove that ants can count their steps, scientists chose several ants from the chain and put miniature stilts on their paws. Because ants had to make wider steps, they passed by the food and be puzzled why didn't they find the food if they have done needed quantity of steps. The comment: I even don't know which thing I like more: — that the scientists spend money and time to find out if ants count their steps; — that somebody have thought of stilts for ants; — that there is a person who have made stilts for ants and have put them on ants' paws. — puzzled ants.

How your mindset determines your health BBC News published an article “How your mindset determines your health”. It’s about a connection between people’s beliefs and their health. It says that if one person thinks one does enough exercises and another one thinks one doesn’t do enough, the first one will achieve the better result and will be more healthy than the second one. An author approves that this works even for negative things, such as smoking. It doesn’t mean that you can just think positive, do nothing and you'll achieve the good result, but it means that if you’ll think more positive way your result will be better than if you’ll think negative way. It also should work for studying languages :)

Where do you find motivation for studying? It's very difficult to make your studying English productive, if you have been studying it already for a long long time and if you already have forgot most of rules and words because you didn't use the language. I say, "You must work harder! You must practice more. Look at your writing and speaking. You must try to improve them." But I don't do it. Where do people find motivation? At first time I thought, "Ok, I haven't used English that's why I forgot it. I'll find language exchange partners, and it will give me motivation which I can't find. I will learning, I will practice, I will improve English." I found wonderful people at this site. But... I still don't do enough to learn English. Where is the motivation??? I ask myself if I'm ashamed of my English skills when I talk to people. Yes, I'm ashamed. But it still don't give me enough motivation to make my studying more hard and get my English better. Where do you find the motivation for studying?

New Years Russians like holidays so much. We even have two New Years because of two calendars: Grigorian and Julian. The first New Year is called just New Year and the second one is called Old New Year. New Year is a holiday of Miracle and Fairytale, Christmas tree, fireworks, smelling of tangerines and making a wish. Most of Russians celebrate New Year with their families. Old New Year is celebrated at night of 13th to 14th on January. It's a good reason to meet your friends and have a party.

My hero My hero is Janush Korchak (Janusz Korczak). He lived in Poland in 19th—20th centuries. He was a doctor, a teacher, and a writer. He devoted his life to working with children in a boarding school. And he wrote pedagogical notes and books for children. I think he was a very great person. But unfortunately the Second World War started, and he died in Treblinka in a gas camera together with children, because he and his pupils were Jewes. He had several chances to be saved, because he was rather famous. But he has prefered not to leave children. I admire him for larger part of my life. I see he was a very good person. He has done a lot of good things. He was a doctor, he was helping for ill people. He was a writer, he wrote very good books, I like his books. And he was a pedagogue, it was a main way of his life and as far as I know he was a really great pedagogue. He was a person who really had a love for people.

It's time. I was told I must write many texts to improve my English. And I said I would write texts, I would do it. But I did nothing. I think it's time. I must not to waiting for tomorrow, next Monday or another better time. I must just start. But I have a problem, I don't know what I can write about. Haha. So I decided to start with this meaningless text. Just for beginning. I'd be grateful if you'll help me with correction my mistakes.