The apatment I live in Hello, Brett! I would like to describe the apartment I live in. I live on the fifth floor of a ten-story house. I have a five-bedroom apartment. We don’t have a hall, unfortunately. The front door opens directly into a living room that is connected with a kitchen. In the apartment there is also our bedroom, bedrooms for our two daughters (each of them has their own room), one more for my mother, and a spare room for quests. We also have a balcony that faces a park and the sea. Our bedroom is neither big, nor small, and it has two windows that face some buildings and the sea. In the middle of our bedroom there is a double bed with a double sheet, two single blankets and two pillows on it. The bed is covered with a cover and there’s a picture with flowers above it. We don’t have a closet, but we have two white wardrobes to hang our clothes in and to put them on the shelves inside. There’s a small blue dresser with four drawers in the room and a full-length mirror hanging on a wall. We also have a small desk and a chair here to work on a computer sometimes. There is a bathroom attached to our bedroom with a shower, a sink and a toilet in it. There are some fitting drawers under the sink and a big mirror above it. We have another bathroom in our apartment with a tub to take a bath. There are two couches, a bookcase and a table for a TV in the living room. We also have some potted plants here. In the kitchen I prepare food on the counter and cook it on the electrical stove or bake it in the electrical oven. There is also a microwave above the oven but I use it very rarely. We have a lot of cabinets and drawers along the walls to keep a lot of pots, pans and other cooking equipment and crockery in our kitchen. We have a dishwasher too but most of the times I wash the dishes in the sink under a tap and dry it off on a plastic dish rack. There are also two fridges and a big dinner table in the kitchen. Thank you for your time and corrections, Brett)))

Four Strange Sports from Around the World. Part 2 Dog Dancing Questions and Answers to "Four Strange Sports from Around the World" Dog Dancing 1. How could you describe canine freestyle? Dog dancing, or canine freestyle, is a mesmerizing choreographed dance of a dog and its owner created by a combination of training, cooperation and music. 2. What is the goal of this sport? The goal is through the dancing to reveal and dog’s inner personality and its relationship with its loving owner. 3. Who competes in this sport? Teams of dogs and owners compete against each other. 4.Who wins this game? A team that receives the best scores wins. Eukonkanto What does “Eukonkanto” translate to in English? This Finnish word translates to “wife-carrying” in English. Is it a serious sport? No, it’s a tongue-in-cheek sport. Why did it start to develop a worldwide following? It became popular around the world due to its hilarious visuals. What kind of sport is it? It’s an obstacle course-style race. What do men do in this sport? They compete against each other in racing though different terrains like sand, gravel or water. What do women do in this sport? Women sit on men’s backs for the entire race. What is the catch of this game? Men race carrying their wives on their backs. Do women participate in this game unwillingly? No, they are happy to be involved in this funny game.

Strange sports. Part 1. Underwater hockey Today I'd like to review the article that my tutor Brett and me discussed during our last session. It's called "4 strange sports from around the world". I've made up some questions and answers for the first part. 1. Where do lesser-known strange sports come from? Part of them comes from very old cultural tradition. Another part is a new combination of two or more well-known sports. 2. How was underwater hockey invented? This type of hockey was invented to train divers in the British Navy in the 1950s. 3. How many players are in a team? A team consists of 10-12 people. 4. What is the difference in an outfit for normal hockey and underwater hockey? Equipment for an ordinary hockey game includes the array of pads while an underwater hockey player has only a diving mask and snorkel, large fins and a thick glove. 5. What is the main idea of this sport? The idea is similar to normal ice or field hockey and is to score by passing the puck through the goal of the other team. 6.What is special about the puck in this game? The puck is made of lead because it should be heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the pool. 7.What do players have to constantly? They have to resurface to breath the air in and then dive again to keep tracking of the puck and other players’ movements. You can watch a short video about this sport here: http://triangleuwh.wix.com/triangleuwh#!donate/c1ghi

The world's most expensive foods I’ve read a very interesting article about the world’s most expensive foods. Only people who have money to burn can afford to themselves to taste this delicious food to please their palate. For example, the chef of the Westin Hotel in New York will present you with a special bagel for a thousand dollars. This bagel is delicately toasted, topped with goji berry and white truffle cream cheese. White truffle is that what makes the dish so expensive. They grow only in Italy under certain oak trees. The next example is Japanese mushrooms matsutake that can be found only in autumn under the trees which are becoming scarce and can’t be cultivated. They cost in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars for a pound. For 3,200 dollars you can have a dish fit for a king and dine on the curry that consists of white truffle, Devon crab, beluga caviar, garnished in gold leaf. Add to that a Scottish lobster, quail eggs stuffed with caviar and abalone to feel a king, because only a king can afford it! For 2,800 dollars you can get a Wague steak from the world’s most pampered cows. These Japanese cattle are fed by beer and massaged by hand to provide the superior marbling and tenderness of the meet. Have you heard about Pizza Royale 007 that costs 4,200 dollars? It’s a twelve-inch pie topped with cognac-marinated lobster, champagne-soaked caviar, smoked salmon, venison, the finest Italian ham, prosciutto, and a garnish of 24-carat gold flakes. You would no longer complain about your grocery bill if you knew that a pair of Ubari cantaloupes were sold at auction in 2008 for 22,872 dollars. Now, it’s time for dessert. The Golden Opulence Sundae will run you about 1,000 dollars. This desert is made from Tahitian vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup, adorned with caviar, exotic fruit, truffle, marzipan cherries and edible 23-carat gold leaf. What about your experience? What was the most expensive food you’ve ever eaten? Personally, I prefer plain and healthy food: it’s perfect both for your stomach and for your wallet!

Making impossible possible I’ve read an interesting article about making Impossible Possible. There are three main steps. Step one is to believe that something you thought were impossible it is possible. Step 2 is to say to yourself that you’re going to do it. The final third step is to do it. How to make it practical? First of all, to live our dreams we should think bigger. Because when we get older we stop dreaming, we lose our big ideas. We start being practical and realistic. We start comforting to what is expected. We keep doing the same old thing. However, being super exited about something that seems impossible is the most motivating thing in the world. We need big challenges in our life to feel alive. Overcoming a challenge makes us stronger and better. It gives us confidence. This way we get greater success in our life. Even our bodies are made for fighting. Our ancestors had to face many tough things to survive. In the modern world when we sit around most of the time, our bodies get sick and diseased. The same things happen with our feelings and mind. The first thing that helps us dream bigger is to take a piece of paper and to write down all the crazy dreams you had when you were young. For instance, to run a marathon, or to open own business, or to travel to a very far country. Make a big list of the dreams from your past. The next thing is to think about now. Be honest with yourself and think what your really want from your life. Don’t be practical. Opposite, be crazy and make a huge list of all these amazing things you would love. After making the lists of your dreams from the past and from now you should envision your perfect day in details. Where you would live, what kind of car you would drive, what family you would have, where you would work… Write down what you would love to do, think big and be specific. Review the lists your old and new dreams, review your ideal day and pick something that seems to be almost impossible. Decide that you’re going to do it and choose a date. The next step (that’s going to be a little scary) is to announce it to everybody. When you’ve told it to your family and friends or you’ve written it about on your blog, you’re completely committed to your idea. So you’ll find a way to fulfill it. It’s very important to let everybody know about your decision and to schedule your actions. It gives you a lot of motivation. So, pick something inspiring, schedule it, announce it, prepare for it and do it!

Could anybody expain me the meaning of this phrase "This is where it really hit home for me"? Thanks

12 pairs of legs Part 3 Legs Patrt 3 Hello, dear friends! Today I continue telling about Aimee Mullins (you can see her speech called “12 Pairs of legs” at ted.com. This is the third part of my “composition” (the two previous ones see earlier). Aimee’s next adventure was her participating in Matthew Barney’s film opus called “The Cremaster Cycle”. At this point of her life she stopped trying to replicate humanness of her artificial legs as the only aesthetic ideal. They made “glass” legs of optically clear polyurethane (a.k.a. bowling ball material). Then they made legs cast in soil with a potato root system growing in them and beetroots out the top. After that they created another character – a half-woman and half cheetah with articulated paws, claws and tail that whipped around like a gecko. Later they collaborated on a new pair of legs that were similar to jellyfish legs. The only purpose of all these pieces of art was to provoke the senses and ignite the imagination. Now Aimee has more than a dozen of her prosthetic legs of different length and models. Thank to this variety she can change her height and have an entirely new relationship with the terrain under her feet and door jams. She remembered that once she brought a new pair of legs with her and went to a very fancy party. With those legs she became 6’1’’ height (instead of her normal 5’8”) and a girl that had known her for years dropped her mouth open and said that it was not fair that she could change her height as she want it. At that moment Aimee realized that the conversation with society is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency rather a talk about potential! People that society once considered to be disabled can now be the architects of their own identities and design their bodies. But the most important thing is that people can move closer to understanding our collective humanity by combining cutting-edge technology and the old-age poetry. Aimee is sure that we all have heartbreaking strengths and glorious disabilities and quoted Shakespeare’s verses: “If you prick us, do we not bleed, and if you tickle us, do we not laugh?” We all belong to human beings – beings that are extremely vulnerable and very strong at the same time. I hope you managed to watch this video at TED and got an opportunity to think one more time about a human being and humanity, disability and superability…

12 pairs of legs Part 2 Hello, my dear friend. Today I continue telling you about the video from TED called “12 pairs of legs” (I wrote the first part a few days ago). Aimee Mullins remembers the conference that was held at TED 11 years ago. She says that many people talked that the conference had a great influence on both speakers and attendees. For herself it was turned out the launch pad to the next 10 years of her life– the life full of wonderful explorations and amazing adventures. She also mentioned about the legs she used at that time. They were modeled after the hind leg of a cheetah and were groundbreaking in prosthetics at that period. Giving her speech at TED 11 years ago, she took advantage of the opportunity to call innovators to use their talent to build new artificial legs in which aesthetic and function will have the same value. A new page of Aimee’s life started when the editor of a magazine ID gave her a cover story. Aimee also had numerous performances around the world telling people about the cheetah legs. After she was told a lot of time by different people that she didn’t look like disabled, Aimee decided to explore the topic of beauty and the meaning of being disabled. Interestingly, that the magazine with the article about Aimee went to fashion designer Alexander McQueen and photographer Nick Knight who developed this conversation about beauty. Three months later Aimee had her first fashion shoot in London and three months after that she took part in runway show on a pair of hand-carved legs from solid ash. Nobody knew that those legs were artificial. They looked like wooden boots. And sure, it was a stunning piece of art with all these grapevines and magnolias. It was the case when poetry transformed the thing that might have scared people into something that make them to look at it longer and try to understand it better. Thank you to everybody who reads my post and special gratitude to my wonderful tutor Brett for his time and patience while correcting my mistakes.

12 pairs of legs Part 1 I would like to write about the topic we talked with Brett about at our last session. We actually watched a video at Ted.com by Aimee Mullins that called “12 pairs of legs”. I want to retell this story because I suppose that retelling something in English with your own words helps you improve your speaking ability greatly. A little bit information about the speaker from Wikipedia: Aimee Mullins (born July 20, 1976 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American athlete, actress and fashion model who first became famous for her athletic accomplishments. She was born with a medical condition (missing fibula bones) that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs below the knee at the age of one year. She has also become one of the most prominent thinkers on the topic of prosthetic innovation. In this video Aimee tells us about her meeting with approximately 300 kids, ages 6-8, once at a children’s museum. She brought with her a bag of her artificial legs and put them all out on the table. She asked adults that came with kids not to enter the room for some minutes to speak with kids not being afraid of rebuking from their teachers and parents. Aimee knew that kids are usually naturally curious. They like to explore everything that they not familiar with, everything they don’t know. And really kind rushed into the room, descended on this table of legs, and began to poke, to prod, to wiggle toes, to put their full weight on the sprinting legs to see what happens. Then Aimee asked the children to help her to dream up an animal or a character whose legs she could have used to jump over a two-or tree-storied house. Without waiting for a moment the kids suggested her a lot of things like a kangaroo, a frog and different cartoon and movie superheroes. The purpose of this meeting was to give kids an opportunity to look at Aimee and to see her as super-abled but not “disabled” as they have been usually trained by adults. Thank you for your attention. In the near future I’m retelling the next part of Aimee’s story.