What is the country of you dream? In which country you'd like to born (if you could chose it)? Which country you think is the most interesting and unusual for visiting?

Firstly, the country for me is not a political system here, but a plce with its climat and its people. If we take this concept, my country of dream would be Spain, especially the South cost of it.
As Spanish is my second (I mean after Russian) language, I've visited this country many times. I like that it is always warm there, and you can go to the beach even in winter. They do not have snow, and it rains less than in Russia. However, the biggest reason why I like this country is the "national character" of people living there.
let me explain. In Russia, when u ask somebody to help u - for example, to find a place (although i personally rarely do it), you never know what will be the reaction. You can be helped, but in some situations you can be insulted or ignored. Another case: when I go in metro every day, I see the people's faces there. And it seems clear for me that in this moment all the people around me are thinking about their problems, it's easy to guess what are they: this guy feels depressed because of his exams failure, that woman seems to worry about not having enough money, etc. In Spain, people just do not focus on their problems, and it is a better attitude. They do not spend their free time feeling depressed; you can rarely see not a smiling face in the street. Even despite the crysis they have, they look like the happiest nation ever.
About the alst question - I wanted to visit some African country because as I know they are very different from the usual places; it can be rather exotic, although may be not very pleasant or interesting. And I mean not Egypt or Emirates here, I mean a non-turistic part of the continent.

Topics for blog #14

1). What are your plans for your summer holiday? Are you going to a seaside, or you prefer another kind of rest?

2). Many professional sportsmen usually joke about people that start to practice something during a short period in spring, before the "beach time". Do you notice something like that in your attitude towards sports? Do you have any time peridos in which you usually practice sports more or less?

3). As our first university year is finishing, it's time to develop a general opinion about student's life and our department. What is your impression about this year (studies, people, changes in your life, etc.)? What do you think about the results you are going to have?

Do you remember the last time, when you visited a theater? How was that? What you liked more?

I've chosen Ivan's second topic because I'm still thinking about the last performance I've seen.
During these holidays, I've gone to theatre twice - both times to MHT (it looks a bit stupidly in translit). First time I've watched "The Last Sacrifice" based on Ostrovsky's play. It was quite a normal performance, I mean it represented what is usually called "classical theatre", and many good actors were involved in it (for example, some very known ones: A. Leontyev and O. Tabakov, and also Tabakov's wife - M. Zudina.
However, the second performance I've seen during this holidays impressed me much more. It was K. Bogomolov's original work "Ideal Husband" (he not only directed the play, he has also written it, although including some parts of Oscar Wilde's, A. Chekhov's and J. Goethe), and it included a lot of satire related to actual Russia. Some metaphors which were a part of the play were quite strict (rude? don't know an adecuate word in English. mb provocative?), in the first place I mean how Russian politics and Russian Orthodox Church were represented. I'm surprised that the performance was not outlowed - particularly taking in consider how agressive seems to be ROC now towards everything that can offend the faith (can't express ironic voice by typing, but you can imagine it here).
In this performance also very good actors played - M.Matveed, S.Chonishvili, M.Zudina and others.
All in all, this performance impressed me a lot, although I can't say that it can be called genius from the point of view of classical theatre.

What are your plans for the spring break? Are you going to stay in Moscow or go somewhere else?

Probably all of us are now looking forwards to our spring vacation. For me, it was a great surprise that we have 12 days of holiday in this season - I thought that all the universities have big breaks only in summer and in winter.
Unfortunatly, I couldn't coordinate my friends in such order that we would have an opportunity to go on a vacation, so I'll spend it in Moscow. But I'm not so sad - 2 of us have their homes available in this period, and I have nothing to do (in contrast to our usual situation with homework). Therefore, we will relax by playing basketball, poker, going to the cinema or restaurants/cafes, etc. etc.
After studying for so long you really start to appreciate your holidays. Probably after i'll find a job after graduating from the univeristy, I'll consider these shot periods of relax even more important than now.

#3 A Philosophical Question This is for any philosophers out there. Do you think it's possible to prove that your mind is not the only conscious mind in the universe? This is a very challenging problem, and if you think the answer is simple then you probably didn't think enough about the question! (Look up "solipsism" on wikipedia if you're curious.)

Easy question, to say the truth. The answer is NO. Undoubtedly. Any prove that you'll find may be just a game of your mind - something like Heisenberg's principle of complementarity: the fact of investigation may change the result. Possibly, in the future quantum mechanics will give an answer, but, as I've told before, it won't be relyable.
But, in my opinion, the answer to the question is not important as your life won't change if you get the answer "yes" or "no". The problem is similar to the one "Does a fallen tree produce any sound if nobody hears it?" - it's kind of sofistry. The only thing that really will change is your thought about it, and in this case the thought won't have much influence on the reality (probably). In order to really change something, you also have to get to know many other answers about the universe and our life, but, as it is impossible, relax and follow the advice of the first edition of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Don't Panic.

Does the consultation week disorient you? I mean whether such kind of break spoils your determination to work hard or not?

In my opinion, consulatation week is a very useful period. Thanks to it, I can sleep for the whole week for 10-12 hours a day, and I also can organize my time (although I rarely do it in a noraml way) in order to make some days totaly free, and do all the work in some others.
To me, a little vacation would be better anyway (and our consulattion week is not a vacation at all: we have our normal homework + a lot of extra homework + preparation for the midterm exams), but this variant I also do like. But, unfortunatly, I'm such a lazy person that I relax for the first 2 days and after it start panic as if I haven't read Adams Douglas and sit down to work for 14 hours a day.
Furthermore, for people who live in other cities the consulattion week a great opportunity to go home for a while and to meet their parents. Moreover, if you are a well time manager, you cane even go for a vacation to some other country and use this time just as if it would be holiday.

Topics for blog

1) What sports are your favourite ones? Describe which one you practise (or mb practised before, or want to practise).

2). How did your life become different when you started to study at HSE-NES? Compare it to your life while beeing at school.

3). What do you think about all the mid-terms we have? How are you going to prepare for them (if you really are)? What are you expecting to do on your "vacation"? (I've joined it to the same topic, as for me, unfortunatly, these time perido and preparing for exams are inseparably linked)

Preparing to do the homework

I always thought that it would be better for me that I would not e registred at any sociel nets, as now, every time I want to start doing my homework, I begin by cheking all the news I have. It usually takes me at least half an hour, and even after that I continue wasting time. Usually, I look throw different "funny" (brackets mean that mostly the are not funny at all, just stupid) pictures, comics, seldom I read something that might be interesting for me and that is not related at all with my homework. After all, I spend some time doing hw and then, feeling like I've done a lot of useful things and my duty as a student, go somewhere to have a rest.  Stupid habbit, imho.

Would you like to know your future?

Once, I had a strange discussion with my friends. We argued about the life of an omnipotent creature. The main topic consisted in answering to the question "Is the life interesting, exciting foran all-powerful creature?". Of course, we can not answer with certainty, but my opinion was that omnipotent person which would know everything that is going on and everything that will take palce in the future won't be interested in continuing its existence, because it won't have any power of will, that comes from our certainty about our ability to influence on the history without knowing the exact results of our moves.
The same thing happens with our question. If you know what will happen in the future, you won't create any goals that you can achieve just because it is nothing to achieve already, everything is decided. The fascination of life consists in its vagueness; when everything is defined, there is nothing to do in this world.

Looking forward to spring (?)

In my opinion, winter is the worst part of the year. I do not like cold weather, in contrast to my Mexican Tandem Plus partner, and I prefer to live near the sea cost where it is always about 25 degree. But, apart these nonrealistic dreams, I like Russian summe more than our winter. That is why I can't wait for winter to finish. However, I do not like spring (I mean its first part) here just the same. In Russia, in April and in March there is always a lot of slush, it rains all the time, it's cool and dank. Besides the weather, I do not have any special preferences as our only long holidays that I am waiting for are in summer (yep, I have such a cynical view of studying that I'm looking forward to have a long rest ^). Furthermore, I do not think that spring is a really romantic time, as in Moscow all people are absorbed in their problems and fussy without any correlation with time of year.
So, all in all, I'm not waiting for spring to come - I'm looking forward to the end of the winter, which, despite the calendar, is still continuing and, in my opinion, will finish only in the beginning of April.

Meaning of life

Firstly, I wanted to write about Tim's 1st topic, but then I thought that the post which involves only one word - "No" - won't be that enough to be exciting to read, although, may be, it was easy to understand and to comment it.
So I've chosen Anna's topic, which seemed to be the most interesting. Sometimes we discuss such questions with my friends, although not very often - all of us already know the thoughts of the others towards the topic.
warning: all my thoughts which will be explained here cannot be interpreted as an agression towards religion, I just do state my opinion, and I have a right to do it, don't I?
I do not believe that human's life involves any general sense or meaning, as I do not believe at any gods. However, I understand that in part it is a consiquence of the education that I had, and I do not try to convince somebody. The sense of life can not exist if we take as an axiom the absence of a creator, and, in my opinion, it is impossible to call the biological aspiration for reproduction as a general purport of life for the whole humanity. Despite it, we can produce a general goal of life for ourselves. There is a strange lexical point here which was the reason of a long discussion with some of my acquaintances because of missunderstanding - I believe that we can call "meaning of life" only something general and common for all of us, and, in this sense, it does not exist. But if we take it as the most important goal of life (which, logically, can be changed), it does.
What about me, I do not have any serious goal now. I just keep enjoying the life in my own way (may be I am just an egoistic hedonist). In contrast to some other people's thoughts, I do not think that the common, general meaning of everything we do has to be a part and parcel of our life. You do not have to "get as much new experience as you are able to", "have a family and raise two kids", "just enjoy your life", "be pious and religious", etc. - you DO NOT HAVE to do something. It's all up to you, you do not owe something to any supernatural beings or common morality, as your life belongs to you.

3 blog topics for the next week

1. Last theatre performance you've seen. Describe it, tell your impressions and thoughts about it.
2. Your plans for the time after graduation in 2016: are you going to continue studying (where?) or to try to find a job (what job?)
3. Your impression about the whole Salinger's book. Did you like it? Why or why not? which other books/films seem to be similar to it?

To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question!

This time, I've decided to choose a topic which i rarely talked about, even with my friends. the case is that I haven't even tried to smoke in my whole life. However, a couple of my friends have been smoking (and trying to give it up).
Firstly, I'd like to say that I understand smoking bad influence on one's health. For me, it is absurd to smoke as this activity does not have benefits, only disadvantages. However, I also do not understand many other activities, like trying to change political situation in Russia, but I am aware of the fact that for other sort of people it can be an important part of their life as they can have other attitude towards this things, such a case is the one of smoking.
My idea is that everyone must have a free choice, although everyone must also know what are the consequences of smoking. Many young (and, unfortunatly, not only young) listen all the warnings, but do not really understand them, but I believe that it is not the problem of the government or the problem of the society - one's stupidness is his or her own problem. Furthermore, more than a half of smokers are really aware of the consequences. There's nothing more to say about them as we have to respect other people's choice. Smoking is not worse than drinking alcohol, and much better than taking drugs (another discussible topic).
An other problem is passive smoking. When i come to a restaurant, or even go on the street, I usually can't evoid passive smoking. This problem is the one that should be solved, as people suffer because of other ones' choice. Passive smoking may be very dangerous for children, but it could injure adults' health just the same. This situation is changing now, fortunatly.
All in all, it is your own decision - to smoke or not to smoke. I prefer not to do it.

Poetry vs. Prose

Literature is usually devided in two different types: poetry and prose. Prose seems to be more popular as it is much easier to understand what is the author writing about, while poetry is sometimes considered to be an "elite art", that is, an art which is done mostly for people which are more clever than most of the others. I believe that poetry is less popular because of an other reason: you need to have quite a huge experience of reading poetry texts if you want to really understand them, while the prose does not require special training.
What about me, I still can't enjoy reading most poetry works and I prefer spend my free time reading novels and short stories. However, I understand that some poems are brilliant (in this area, Russia is an outstanding country: we have a lot of great poets, and I like them much more than their colleagues from other countries)) and, from time to time, I read poetry, although not very often.
All in all, prose is easier and more accesible, that's why I prefer novels.

David's topic #1. Favourite novel.

When in the beginning of this semester i was asked about my favourite novel, I couldn't remember which one is the best, and I still can not do it. For me, it was always very hard to choose favourite book, film, painting, etc. I enjoy reading books of different authors, and I can't state that one is the best and the others are worse. In my opinion, to choose who is better - Ray Bradbury or Gabriel  Garcia Marquez - is a nonsense. All the writers are different and many of them have their particular charm. So I'll write about a couple of novels here.

1). Erich Maria Remarque's Spark of Life. All Remarque's books have the same sad and tragical style, but this novel is the only one that seems not to bear a resemblance to the others at all. It doesn't tell us about
love, which is very strange for Remarque's books. The story is very dark and cruel - this novel tells us about fascist concentration camp. Main hero even does not have a name,  only a number - 409th.

2). Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - well-known book, one of the greatest novels of the XX century, it has many social critics which masked by insane hero's delirium. The story also is perfect from the psycological point of view.

3). Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion - less known in Russia, this book is harder to understand then the previous one. Furthermore, in my opinion it is more profound. The plot is about strange and sometimes unpleasant relationships inside one family.

4). Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude - this book doesn't need an introduction: I think everybody knows this novel. Probably, Marquez' best book, it shows us perfectly his favourite genre of magic realism.

5). Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five - it's impossible for me to explain the style of a book. It shows us some parts of a war from an unusual point of view of an American who came under the bombs which were dropped on Drezden by American Army. This time, in Drezden there were no German soldiers at all - only Americans and thousands of innocent civilians.

This list should be much longer. It may include the novels of such writers as Ray Bradbury and Roger Zelazny, Terry Pratchett and Duglas  Adams, Anthonny Burges and Jerzy Kosinski, Douglas Coupland and Jack Kerouac, Richard Bach and Akutogawa Ryunosuke, Johann fon Goethe and Miguel de Cervantes, etc. etc. etc. ...