#moreфон2018 Day 29. Here is another essay I wrote. “Write about something ugly — war, fear, hate, or cruelty–but find the beauty in it.” After reading the topic, one thing immediately came to my mind – the phenomenon of Hoovervilles, which definitely was negative, but at the end of the day something really good came out of it. If you are not familiar with the term “Hooverville”, let me explain it and tell a touching story that happened in the years of the Great Depression in the United States. I think we should firstly look at the etymology of the word Hooverville. In the root of it we can see the last name of the 31st President of the US – Herbert Hoover, notoriously famous for being the leader of the country in the hardest years of struggle for millions of Americans, the years of the Great Depression. There is also the suffix -ville, which is commonly added to the names of small towns, like Brownsville, Victorville and so on. To understand the phenomena of Hoovervilles better, we should keep in mind that thousands of those people, who became homeless then – they were not drug users, bums or some renegades, they were hard working people with families and values, who had just been kicked out from their jobs because of the collapse of the stock market. About a quarter of the US population was unemployed. People were being evicted from their houses with hungry kids, crying wives and elderly parents all across the country. Where could they go? Nobody was hiring, factories had been closed, companies had gone bankrupt, all friends and relatives were just in the same desperate situation. So, people started living in the streets: under the bridges, on roads shoulders, on public lands where they would built shacks from cardboard, wood, stones, anything what they could find. The authorities were showing no compassion to people in need, systematically burning and destroying those “camps”, offering no alternative, no other shelter or place to live. Although the shacks were put up in disorder in Hoovervilles, the communities did not give the appearance as being chaotic, insane tribes. People organized self-administrations and even elected mayors who represented them in negotiations with local authorities. In Hoovervilles people of all colors, nationalities and backgrounds lived together, sharing the same bitter destiny. All social and cultural differences did not play any role anymore, the residents were united in one community with a strong sense of comradery.

#moreфон2018 Day 28. Today I practiced my writing. I wrote the essay on the topic "Do you need education to succeed in life?" Of course, education does not guarantee success. Success is not attached to your diploma. But we still need to get education. Here are some reasons why. There are certain jobs that you cannot do without university education. You can not get your degree in law from “The Law and the Order” and you cannot become a cardiologist by binge watching “Dr House”. You must walk a long way. Universities teach regular habits like to read a lot, to work systematically and to be attentive to deadlines. At universities students are taught how to think, how to analyze phenomena. They accumulate knowledge for their future jobs. Studying at college can also improve social skills. Speaking about how education impacts future success, we should answer the question: what is success? Is it a vital necessity - to be successful? I do not think that there are two types of people – successful ones and losers, I believe, that there are people who need to please their ego through others acknowledgment and those who do not need it. Success, money and recognition are just side effect of hard labor and long doing of what you like. And as any side effect sometimes they manifest, sometimes they do not. Education is not about success, it is about self-respect and dignity. It is something that distinguish us from other animals. For me education is an ultimate value, I think that obtaining knowledge is one of a few really good things, you can do in life. When a person is educated, he/she starts seeing things more clearly, we now can realize how complex the world is. And today when there are so many sources of education (books, online universities, courses, webinars, etc.) it is literally a crime not to educate yourself. If someone does not have college degree, it does not mean they will fail their lives, or they will one hundred percent prosper. But if you do not educate yourself you will, for sure, fail your natural ability to develop in something bigger than just an eating, sleeping and reproducing creature. I think that when people denounce universities, they choose a wrong target for criticism. There is nothing bad in college education. The fact that a few can afford it is bad. Education is one of our basic needs. It must not be the privilege, it must not be luxury, it is must not be for elites, it must be for everyone!

#moreфон2018 Day 27. Today I practiced the reading part of the TOEFL test. I took a sample-test and scored only 22 points (75% of my answers were correct). Well, it seems to me, it's time to shift my attention from the speaking part to reading. I wrote down some new words: feasible (can be implemented or fulfilled), devise (invent, make up), arduous (complicated or difficult to do), passage (a part of the text), to pale (to become less significant, to lose color), adjacent (neighboring), virtually (actually, in fact), subsequent (the following). Today I've also finished listening to another great podcast which is "Gladiator" - the story of rising and falling the star of American football player Aaron Hernandez, a talented athlete, who had everything - the family, money, an outstanding career, but suddenly lost it all, committed a triple homicide and took his life in prison. The journalists from The Boston Globe related his behavior to multiple brain injuries he'd had and with the necessity to lie about his homosexuality in a homophobic and super masculine environment of NFL. I think they did a great job, investigating this case.

#moreфон2018 Day 26. Today I'm going to have a lesson with a new teacher. Her name's Rose and it's said in her profile that she's been preparing her students for TOEFL as well. That's exactly what I need now, since there are too many resources and books on the Internet and I have now idea what to start with and how to organize my preparation properly. It's been 26 days since I started my self-preparation and I think I stuck at some point. Of course, I continue taking practice tests and working on my vocabulary. But as any English learner I'm looking for some magic advice and method that will drastically boost my skills. Well. we'll see if my new teacher turns out to be that wizard :)

#moreфон2018 Day 25. Today’s post is going to be off topic. Normally, I describe my preparation for the TOEFL exam. But this time I want to bring up a controversial subject of correction of errors. If someone posts their notes here, on iTalki, it automatically means that native speakers are welcomed to correct mistakes. But let ask ourselves, whether it works or not?! I can see some issues with it. 1. CORRECTING someone’s mistake does NOT mean TEACHING him/her to speak or to write. 2. Instead of correcting, I would EXPLAIN why this/that is wrong and another variant is right. 3. It is amazing, when not the grammar mistakes are corrected but the style! Each learner has its personal style of writing, we cannot limit anyone’s self-expression and marginalize his or her style of writing. 4. When a learner is at intermediate or upper-intermediate level, the main issue that he/she faces is insecurity. Believe me, those people whose essays you are correcting struggle with fear of speaking and being corrected. So, what you consider as “help”, does NOT help. 5. I think, it is inappropriate when a non-native-speaker corrects other learners’ notes. Let the experts do their job! 6. Finally, if you cannot help yourself correcting others, do not forget at least to praise and motivate the student, say something pleasant, motivate them to keep moving! So, as you can see, I do not appreciate the corrections.

#moreфон2018 Day 24. Here is my essay on the topic "My favorite book". For such a huge fan of reading who I am it’s a very hard choice to decide which book to review. After long deliberations , I eventually chose “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer. Jon Krakauer is a famous journalist, well-known for his book “Into The Wild” which is about a young dreamer and idealist who left his middle-class suburban life and literally ran into the bushes. Unfortunately (and the author does feel sorry about it) he ended up in an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. Before his death there he severely suffered from starvation and loneliness. Krakauer’s other great book that I am going to write about is based on a true story that happened to him in the mid-nineties when he was assigned by the magazine he worked for to take part in the expedition to Everest. The expedition went wrong and five participants died. That earth-shattering accident was brought to the screens in 2015. There is also the documentary about it. The plot is quite easy to retell. Jon and other alpinists paid the company “Adventure Consultants” to climb the highest mountain on the Earth, they were properly trained and instructed but the weather on the Mount Everest is very unpredictable, there was the storm and the disaster happened. This story is really personal for the author not just because he witnessed the death of his comrades, but also because he felt guilty about not helping them and leaving them there to die. However, it is worth mentioning that all climbers experience the unbearable oxygen starvation up there and even oxygen masks do not help. This damages the brain and you start acting like a zombie. You can not analyze the situation and are driven totally by your instincts. And when there are two lives on that scales – your friend’s one or your own - it is not surprisingly you will do anything to save yourself. Well, at least the author is brave enough to talk about that catastrophe on Everest and even to call himself a coward. I know that after publishing the book Jon Krakauer received hundreds of letters where people were giving him names and telling how bold they would be there, which I doubt a lot. I think the story teaches us to stay to be realistic about our abilities because there are a lot of things we can not do.

#moreфон2018 Day 23. There is 45 minutes left before the midnight, so I should hurry up to manage to take this note. Today I've had some rest and read an incredible book - "A Gang Leader For A Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes To The Street". The book was written by Sudhir Venkatesh, who's now a Harvard professor, but back then in the 90-s he was a postgraduate student working on his dissertation. He was studying the phenomena of poverty in one of the worst Chicago's ghettos. In order to scrutinize the issue he spent almost 10 years questioning the members of the gang, it was an adventure full of hazard, moral and ethical questions. If you want to know more about the life of the black communities in Chicago, you definitely should read that book.

#moreфон2018 Day 22. It has been said that one needs to spend 21 days of doing something to develop the habit. Well, it has been 21 days of my writing and I still have to force myself to keep this diary. Some things just don't work for me. Anyway, let's go back to my TOEFL preparation. Today I spent two and a half hours taking the practice test. I was desperate to see my results. And what do you think? I didn't submit my answers! Aha-ha. Hope, tomorrow I won't forget to save my results.

#moreфон2018 Day 21. Yesterday I prepared another piece of independent writing on the topic "My favorite song". One of the songs that has recently struck me was “Iron Sky” by Paolo Nutini. At first, I watched the video to this song which looks like a documentary and represents a terrifying picture of a dystopian future, where the government invented the way to influence people’s minds by transmitting ideas into their heads. And to resist it people started smoking the drug named “Aurora”. The video was shot in the outskirts of Kiev (Ukraine), so all views were absolutely recognizable to me. The short movie was made so realistic that you totally believe the story. I do appreciate the fact that Paolo Nutini pasted into the song Charlie Chaplin’s speech from “The Great Dictator” – one of the most inspiring and admirable speeches against dictatorships. To understand the lyrics fully, we should dig into Nutini’s background. He’s the son of Italian immigrants who moved to Scotland during WWI. He’s a great supporter of the idea of Scotland’s independence from Britain and also stands for legalizing of marijuana. So, I think all these facts define him as a very liberal person who can’t put up with any oppression from the government. Moreover, he brings up the problem of lacking the personal interaction among people nowadays. So, if you ask me what this song is about I would answer that it describes today society, where there are so many stereotypes and propaganda, which forces us to experience strong feelings (like love and hate) without reflection, but there is hope out there and we can overcome a blind consuming of fake ideas and become “free and beautiful”. P.S. Here is the lyrics of that wonderful song: We are proud individuals living on the city But the flames couldn’t go much higher We find gods and religions to To paint us with salvation But no one No nobody Can give you the power To rise over love And over hate Through this iron sky That’s fast becoming our minds Over fear and into freedom Oh, that’s life Left dripping down the walls Of a dream that cannot breathe In this harsh reality Mass confusion spoon fed to the blind Serves now to define our cold society From which we’ll rise over love Over hate From this iron sky That’s fast becoming our minds Over fear and into freedom You just got to hold on! You just got to hold on!