Impressions from my first novel in English Last days I read the book I wanted to read for a long time, "A Wizard of Earthsea" in English. Before this I've read it only in Russian, but it became my favorite since that first reading 15 years ago. When I knew there are several translations, I thought of reading them, but also I wished to get and read its English version first. I wanted to appreciate the beauty of the original. I think it's no use to speak much about the language of the novel, because I'm not a native speaker and not a literary critic by trade, so cannot judge objectively. The only things I want to say is the following. First, there was not any serious difficulty for me to read this book without dictionary at all. I mean I read it continuously without consulting a dictionary once the word was unknown. Some sentences in the first half were inconvenient to my reading-in-English experience, of course, but generally I understood almost everything, more than 95%. Second, I absolutely enjoyed the style of narration, with lots of words and constructions showing the richness of English. I am glad that "A Wizard..." has become my first novel in English. There is no much knowledge one must have to understand its sense. The novel itself gives a reader enough, so all the symbols and allegories are understandable without other special books. And what's even better, I think, almost everyone can see something individual in this, one's own hidden sense, although it may seem "just a good fairy tale" at first sight. Its sense is much deeper. So to say, the question "what is that story about?" can be answered in different ways. The first one that came to my mind is "this story is about people should think over what they do". The second that may be is "this is an allegory about fixing the ecological problems caused by human errors". The third is "the story tells about acceptance of the darker side of one's soul". The fourth is "this is a tale about finding and recognition of one's and the world's integrity in duality". And so on. The senses seem to be multiple, I just mentioned few. Well, I don't know what else to say just to recommend to read this novel for non-native English speakers who reached at least intermediate level. Reading this may improve your skills, expand your vocabulary, and bring you much joy of perceiving the English speech. P.S. Thank you for reading. Any comments and corrections are welcome.

Earth Sciences in our life: Part 2 Now we have the materials to build a house, but where exactly we should do it? Engineering geology analyses all sites thought to be suitable and decides is it a good or bad place. For example, if we choose the place near river that---as hydrological study revealed---floods its flood-plain every spring, our place is obviously bad, even from a common sense viewpoint. If we choose a site near the edge of a steep slope composed by sands or clays, it's also a bad place, because a landslide may occur here and the house would be in danger. The other reason against building at either of the sites mentioned above may be a high seismicity of the region where we plan to build. Shaking even from a relatively weak earthquake is felt much better at loose grounds like alluvial rock in the flood plain or sand/clay are. It also can damage the materials of which our house is built. So hard rocks are generally better, in terms of earthquake engineering, to construct anything on them. But still not all hard rocks are good enough for building. Certain rocks, seemingly hard at first sight, can be washed away and dissolved by simple rainwater. This phenomenon is called karst. It is still dangerous if karst rocks are not exposed to the surface, but occur at certain depth: they may be gradually dissolved or washed away for many years and cause sudden collapse of the overlying layers with the constructions upon them. The same may happen if not to take into account the ground pressure when mining or underground building. So the respective knowledge from Earth Sciences helps builders and miners to make the resultant constructions as safe as possible. I've considered here perhaps the brightest examples of how different Earth Sciences can invisibly affect our everyday lives. But more can be found besides them. If to remember that everything is interrelated, one can find many intersections between the Earth Sciences and other fields of knowledge seemingly far from it.

Earth Sciences in our life: Part 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO READERS/CORRECTORS: The text is completely spontaneous, so sorry if there's no much consistency in narration. Nevertheless, I think I was generally literate in this text. But if you'll see any fine errors, feel free to show me at them. :) Thank you in advance! * * * It may seem that knowledge from the Earth Sciences is not very important for everyday life. But I would argue. If not this knowledge, we wouldn't live as we are. First, there is an old claim that the power of climate is the strongest. And in many senses it does so. Climate is not only average weather, but extreme phenomena also. Hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and heavy-rain-induced floods are what some branches of the Earth Sciences study. Climate scientists try to find a clue between such a major phenomenon as El Nino and deviations in regular seasonal weather patterns in the regions far from the equatorial zone of the Pacific. So, it is really important to know, how climate "works", because we can prepare to any flood or drought early. This is not the only one why Earth Sciences are important to us. Most people in the developed countries live and work in buildings constructed of what's initially been extracted from nature. To say in more precise, from the interior. These are rocks---materials---having different properties. Geochemists can say what rocks can be treated to extract any necessary compound. In addition, don't forget about what drives our mechanisms, keeps us warm in winter and---don't be surprised---makes some cosmetics smell. Oil, gas and coal are also recovered from the Earth's interiors. But how to find where any resource lies, if it's hidden by the thick blanket of other rocks? Geologists find general regularities of how rocks distribute in space; isotope geology helps to determine when any rocks formed; so if we know that layer A can be associated with oil, and layer B often overlies layer A, we can search for layer B and hope to find oil beneath it. Of course it's an oversimplified example, but still giving a clue how geologists can find any necessary resource. See Part 2 to continue reading.

I like Earth Sciences I like to read about science in general, but pay the most attention to those studying our planet. Geography is the most obvious that I can mention, and indeed I like to read about foreign countries, places beyond mine, travels, discoveries, wonders and so on. But there's a lot of scientific branches also dealing with the Earth or its parts. My favourites are seemingly seismology (science about earthquakes, a branch of geophysics), tectonics (motion of crustal blocks), paleogeography (outlines of the land in glacial epochs and lost landscapes like Doggerland) and climate science (especially drawing the parallels between the present and past climate). What can be common for these pretty different fields of knowledge? Map. This is a common "language" of all Earth Sciences. Of course, I can read something about geophysics, geology, ecology, history, but not everything though. Hey, one may say, ecology and history are not Earth Sciences. Yes, I know, but they use maps also. Additionally, works in these fields may discuss things closely related to some Earth Sciences. Everything is interrelated, as one wise man said. :) Earth is our common home, so I'd like to know more about it.

Где найти литовскую перепевку песни группы "Рондо"? В оригинале называется "Боже, какой пустяк". Я слышал её однажды на литовском радио, успел записать немного, но не полностью. Пела женщина. Больше ничего добавить не могу. Также, если это реально, был бы рад ссылке на нормальный текст. То, что предлагается тут - http://dainu-vertimas.com/daina/rodyti/1808564/ivanov-aleksandr-rondo/tekstai-ir-vertimai-bozhe-kakoj-pustyak/ - не то, перевод, похоже, слишком буквальный. Я помню, что вторая строчка припева заканчивается на "ne tik", а здесь "negerai"... P.S. Может быть есть какие-то другие литовские перепевки русскоязычных песен с текстами - буду рад послушать.

Cooking new and fusion dishes to widen the taste experience I think that cooking is a good way to get new experience if it's difficult to go anywhere. Of course, I mean cooking something new, or maybe old with new ingredients. The only thing I should say in addition is that I choose new dishes to cook depending on how long they are cooked. I hate spending much time for a dish that can be eaten in a hour. Several years ago I tried food combinations that seem to be not combined usually. Pomelo + salmon was a spontaneous and occasional attempt that, however, appeared to be tasty. A bit later I---also occasionally and spontaneously---invented an interesting combination: boiled squid + fried onion (standard food) + banana. Few months ago I get to know how such style is called---it's fusion cuisine. Some fusion cuisine recipes seem to be really of extravagant and eccentric tastes, but some are just involve common food in uncommon combinations. For example, anyone can eat potato, or oranges, or carrot separately, and add tomato paste to any dish, but putting these things together may sound a bit strange for many people. Hehe, fusion is when dish sounds strange by its components, but still may be tasty. So, I try something new and unordinary from time to time and yesterday I decided to cook one of those simple dishes: cherry + fried onion. Firstly, I boiled cherry (it was frozen) then picked out of water and added fried onion. The original recipe included some starch, but I thought it wouldn't affect much the resulted taste if I wouldn't add this ingredient. The taste was really uncommon and the whole dish was pretty eatable. But it has not been as fascinating as, for example, squid + banana or beetroot + pineapple. That's the side effect of fusion cuisine - you'll never know what the real taste will be, so certain probability to disappoint always remains. Today, I have also tried one simple and new dish. This is a kind of light snacks: bell ("sweet") pepper stuffed with garlic+cheese mixture and the whole boiled egg in the middle. The stuffed pepper is placed into refrigerator for few hours (or into freezer for about a quarter of hour) and then is cut into slices. The photo exhibits what I resulted in the end. Hope you'll also enjoy it. :) P.S. I think I didn't make many mistakes at words use in the text, so only maybe "fine tuning" of articles, prepositions and commas are needed and welcomed. Thanks in advance. :)

To start... This is my first note here. I think I should write here the reasons why I am here, at italki.com. First of all, I like to communicate with people from abroad. Second, I want to improve my English. Some Englishmen told me that my writing English is much better than that of native Englishmen. But I'm a translator (Ru to En) and language editors time and again prove that my language skill is not perfect. Not the worst, of course, but not among the best either. I think I should tune my skill in fine tings like harmony of tenses, uses of articles, prepositions and gerunds. So English grammar-nazi are welcome to correct me at these points. :) Thanks in advance. Third, I'd be also glad if someone will help me practice Lithuanian and French. I don't plan to visit Lithuania or France, or any other country in the nearest future, though plan to visit Vilnius and Paris one day. And fourth, I can help anyone who already has good skills in Russian and needs "fine tuning", like me in English. I'm also a kind of grammar-nazi regarding Russian, so I can notice many fine errors. That's all for now, any comments are welcome.