15. Leningrad.

  I was extremely suprised and happy when I read the topic #3 of Tim. So, that means that I want to write about the last concert where I have been. Honestly to say, I was only on one "real" concert of a band. And that band was my lovely Russian LENINGRAD.

  I think some readers might be really confused and refuse to read these post due to it is about such a strange band. I understand them. When I said to my parents that I was going to go to such concert, my father said, "Are they those garbage mouths? Yes? I would comment this". So, about the concert. The decision to go was made in several days before the concert. My friend from Voronezh asked publicly in Russian Facebook whether somebody wants to go, and I said 'yes' and on the next day we bought ones of the last tickets. We gathered a company of 6 people who previously lived in Voronezh and arrived to Stadium Live (the place of the concert) one our before the concert and one guy said, 'Hey, we are going to the concert of one of the most crazy and drunk band in Russia, we shouldn't be sober!". So, we bought a bottle of vodka and drank it in 10 minutes. I felt myself being one of lowlifes who just drink beer everyday on the streets, but it was funny, and only once, so I didn't care. So, we entered the hall and found there were really small number of people there. We stood to one of the best places, near the stage and waited. Waited for 2 hours. The most funny thing was the way people were calling for the most well-known member of the band, the permanent leader of it, Sergei Shnurov (Shnur). They were shouting something like,"hey, drunk moron! stop drinking and move your ass to the stage!". So, after 2 hours we whole band came out, the hall was overcrowded in that moment, and the concert began. The first two songs were "normal", people were warming up, but I remember how I was shocked during the third song when the whole crowd started moving to the right and when I a really big man fell almost on me. The madness began, but it was rather funny. After 10 minutes I found that in the middle of the crowd there was a place were different man were just running and pushing each other. After another several minutes I turned around once more and found them simply fighting. The whole situation was rather dangerous, but really cool. After some kind of pause which was made after an hour of the concert I lost the impression of the concert. I was fed up with this feeling of being Russian. So the second part of concert I preffered to stay out of the crowd. It was really great concert.

   Some people, especially my neighbors when I am listening to the songs of Leningrad loudly, ask me why I do it. All this songs are about alcohol, being nobody, and fullfilled with bad words. Their songs can completely create the image of 'simple Russian' who drink, do nothing and blame other people for his problems. But in the same time there is big amount of songs in which the author is laughing at our society. He doesn't appeal to changes, not the only thing he appeal to is freedom, freedom of social norms, and doing what you want. And I like it. Yes they are full bad words, but they are full of some kind of meaning. It is not stupid songs about parties or distorted kinds of "love" and not about such garbage as beautiful life of movie stars and other celebrities. It is songs about our common life. Dirty, frustrating life of simple russians, not of the students of cool economics program. So, may be my love to this songs is a way to be closer to simple people, some kinf of patriotism. Or just a desire to be simple free man and do not depend on society. Something like that.

Thank you for attention.

14. A strange boy.

  I decided to write on Ildar's topic #3 about my attitude to strange people.

  Actually, you can tell anything about your attitude to strange people, like "they are not very different from us", or "we should help them and be tolerate to their unorthdoxies", but it is just words. You should meet him or her to understand your real attitude. And suprisingly today I saw such a boy in metro. Firstly, it was very strange that this guy was standing and looking at me for quite long tome, 3-4 second, and it was really difficult to feel his sight upon me. Then you started to walk near me, and when he saw a woman who crossed the line near the train, he shouted at her and said not to do it more. Then he started worrying because the train hadn't come for 5-6 minutes, so he started whistling to call him. And he whistled really loudly speaking strange words about numbers and train. Then train arrived and we came in it. I was going from one side to another and when the train stopped on one station, he came to the doors and stand right near them. It seemed that he was going to come out (and people who stood out of the train thoughts so). But when doors opened, he didn't move, stayed there for 2-3 seconds and only then came back to the middle of the train. Then he talked a little bit more and on the next station ran out of the train, pushing people. So, what did I do all this time? Nothing. Yes, he was annoying, he I wanted to say, "shut up, please", but I thought that this boy could be very similar to Christopher. That he couldn't do anything to his affection, that he didn't want to talk all the time, but he just couldn't stop talking. Of course, he might have been one of those teens who want to deviate to show themselves to society, but he really looked like he had some mental problems. So, I stood near him and didn't do anything.
  We can't blame such people for their behavior. It is not their fault that they are so different from us. We need just to let them live in their own world, not to disturb them with our "help" if they didn't reallt want it.

 Thank you for attention.

13. Topics for blog #13.

  1) How do you celebrate (if you the celebrate) the 9th of May? What is your attitude to the fact that many people now consider this holiday (and not only this) as a reason to gather and drink?
  2) Can you cook? What kind of dishes can you cook? Do you agree that cooking is not only necessity but also some kind of art?
  3) Have you done some sport? Do you have any achievements in it?

12. Cartoons.

   I decided to write a blog about the Liza's topic #3 about catoons. I consider cartoons as very important way of socialization of all children, so may be it is possible to control the content of modern cartoons.

   The answer on Liza's question about the best cartoon is 'The Lion King'. It is very beautiful story which touches many important themes of our life. The core of the story is in life of the main character, Simba. He comes through a difficult way of education by his father, the death of his father and following expulsion from the Kingdom and returning the justice in his freedom in the final of the cartoon. The main character presents such themes as responsibility for our deeds, the obedience to the parents and inviolable union of the family (more presented in the second part of the cartoon). Mufasa, the father of Simba, is a symbol of wisdom of a governor and lovinf father. There is also a theme of envy and betrayal which presented in the image of Scar who eventually dies from betrayals of hyenas. The hyenas in turn represents a theme of poor groups who are ready to do anything and listen to anyone to receive food. There is also rather famous image of two friends of Simba, Timon and Pumba, who live with a motto 'Hakuna Matata' which means avoiding any difficulties in life and just enjoying life. To sum up, 'The Lion King' is an extremely beatiful, instructive story which should be seen by everyone.

   Another one story which I liked in my childhood, but started to really appreciate is a Russian cartoon made on the novel of Nicolay Nosov "Dunno on the Moon". I ashamed to say that I didn't read the book which was written the 1960s, but I watched a cartoon. Now I understand that the Moon society described in the book was a great carucature of capitalists countries, and the Soviet Union was this peaceful society on the Earth. But now I start to think that this Moon society is very similar to our modernity. I don't want to talk about the governments and press controlled by big companies, but about the image of "Island of fools". I was shocked by the hidden meaning of the song about this island. The main idea that the time spent in the island changes people into goats. That can be said about our modern TV, music, humor and culture as whole. There is an overwhelming process of globalization, massification. People love similar persons, listen to similar music, laugh from similar jokes. They are animals which are very simple to manipulate. They are those goats from the "Island of fools".

   Now something about modern cartoons. The first point is new technologies of painting. I understand that it is very effective to use computers in creating of cartoons, but ... have you seen these "new" cartoons? The only possible name for characters of some of these cartoons is a monster! They are ugly, something like parodies on humans. The second point is content. It is absolutely stupid plots with "black" humor. The scenes with a person who slipped down on a banana peel are very common, but I think long time ago they were also considered as violent. The worst thing will be the situation when violence in the cartoons would become normal. That would mean people turned completely in goats and pigs.

   Cartoons is the way our children explore the world. Of course, cartoosns are kind of art too, and can be used to express feelings of the authors, but these expressions shouldn't spoil children's mind. The censorship on children cartoons is something incredible (but our government is trying to adopt such policy). So, this is parents' duty to contain their children from watching such cartoons.

   Our children is our future.

   Thank you for attention.

11. Room #101.

   I decided to write a post on David's topic about a most "scareful" fear. Actually, the point of my fear is rather abstract, so I want to write about and fear itself.

   The first time I have been asked the question about my own fear in room #101 was during Thursday discussion. After several minutes of thinking, I answered silence. It is rather strange kind of fear when nothing happens or happens very quietly. In our age the absolute silence could hardly be reach. And I like it. If I don't hear anything, strange things start in my mind. Sonething like the brain on its own creates sounds. And only sounds, but feelings of emptiness, the feeling of extremely high pressure coming from outside and squeezing all voices to the silence and yourself to the point. In this situation I am starting to say something, but can't really hear my own voice and this is real disaster. Only sound coming from "outside" can save me in this situation. This is dangerous, such kind of consternation.

   From this small "analysis" of one particular fear I can conclude only one statement: "The fear is in our mind". I think this phrase is common for all kinds of fear existing in reality. Sometimes the fear is a signal from the brain that some decisions can have dangerous concequences. These is instincts formed by nature of experience. But sometimes fear is formed by someone's opinion or by human's complexes. I think, the originality of such fears is the fear to fail. Or this frequent question: "What would "they" say if I did it?". In the place of word can placed almost every person in the world. Actually, people are more afraid to fail in someone else's eye's, not in their own. It may be couched in another way, something like: "In the short run people are thinking about opinion others. in the long run they carry about their own   ". But this is the root, why people are so afraid of others opinion. Of course, we don't live in caves any more. Nowadays society presses individualities through social norms and fashion. No one wants to be in the ruck and, in the same time, no one wants to be white crow. Because of the last statement could be attached to almost every person, so all people are the ruck. How to overcome the pressure of society and become fearless? I don't know. The only thing I know is that this mean removal from society. Life with society is feeling, security and sometimes slavery. This is just another trade-off of our life. All depends on you.

   So, this is what I wanted ti tell about the fear. Fear is something essential in our life. Sometimes it saves us from danger, sometimes it create difficulties. Such kind of "instrument" can be very useful sometimes.

   Thank you for attention.

10. Problems of education.

   In the last year I started thinking more and more on the questions of education, so I chose Anna's topic #1.

   How to encourage a child to study? Difficult question on which every parents find their answers. Based upon my own experience and experience of my friend who I know from the childhood, I assured only in one thing.YOU SHOULDN'T MAKE YOUR CHILD STUDY. I have a great amount of situation when my friends from the first form had several 'extrateachers', attended different 'circles' and the consequences of this 'extra activity' was that they really hate it and sometimes hate their parents who were making helpless children. Of course, you can say that in the age of 16-18 teens would regret that parents hadn't sent them to some circles. And, vice versa, those, who were sent, would be thankful to their parents. But the latter statement is about situations when children were pleased with their courses, and this is not about all situations.
 
   One more statement which I learnt from life experience is, "People never hear advice and never learn from other's mistakes". Only wise man can hear opinion of another man and then change his or her decision if it was wrong. Most people are stubborn goats. They listen and then do how they like. Especially children. If you would go after your child and speak permanently, 'You should study. The education will be useful in future', once your child would completely hate the education. That is why it is very important to make science interesting to a child. That is why, in my opinion, the role of primary-school teachers is underestimated. And, moreover, the group in which a child is studying is very important. I think there are 'not very good' schools in which from the very beginnig some pupils are against the education. These pupils are usually from 'not very good' families. In my opinion, the atmosphere in class is a very important criteria in choice of the school. If half of the class are not studying (and this is always the most 'active' part of the class), then it would disturb the another part half. So, coming from the assumption that you can't make your child study on the early stage, I conclude that in this period you should send him or her to 'good' school.


   All that was said in the previous paragraph are rather obvious thing. But what parents should do if their child refuse to study in rather 'intelligent' age. Learnt from the experience of my friends, I understood only one thing. And it is similar to the one from the first paragraph. You shouldn't annoy your child every day with appeals to study. What should parents do if a teen just uninterested in education? What if he or she just more interested in sports, art or in walking and doing nothing with friends? Maybe it is time for parents to understand that their child is not future great scientist and approve his or her extraschool interestings. It is stupid belief in our society that every successful person should have education. The success of the person depends on his or her own ablities such as purposefulness and initiativity and, of course, in our days, education (nowadays more and more number of successful people have good education). Such a parameter as 'individual abilities' is very vague in the age of 15, so parents want to receive 'insurance' for their children and they pay for their education which usually appears unnecessary. That is why most parents are ready their children study using all possible and impossible means, and, if they fail, ready to pay for them.

   The answer to the first question appeared longer than I have expected, so I will answer on the next two more shortly. Money for grades? In the school age the money incentive are not very effective in my opinion, because the money from parents it is like sign of their love. Most people just can't refuse to their children in money and it may create negative consequences in relations. And moreover, it creates negative effect that children are ready to study not to receive knowledge, but to receive money from parents. May be this is effective in short run, but a disaster in long run.

  Conversations with a child? Being a teenager, a child hears parent's phrases is opponent meaning. One or two conversations may be useful, but more would create child's bad attitude to education. In such a situation good friend could be very useful. That is why it is very important to not allow child to spend time in 'bad' companies because under their influence all conversation with a teenager would be useless.

   Of course, this is just thoughts of 18-year student. The reality about education of children would be different, but I hope this ideas will help me in future, because now I understand more in education from the side of a child than I would when I have children.

   Make children, not war! :)

   Thank you for attention.

9. Topics for blog #9.

1. Have you ever earn money by yourself? What was you first job? If you don't have such an experience, when are planning to start working?
2. Who should pay in restraurants: a man or both man and woman?
3. What is your first memory about anything? Something what you really remember not from photos or videos?

8. The story of one party.

  I really like the topic of Ivan Mozharov about party. I can't chose the only "best party" because I had rather big amount of them during last 2 years. But I chose one very interesting and rather unusual.

   During the last days of May 2011 my friends and me were passing there last exams. My friend Anthony had had rather attractive idea to make a party in his dacha after all exams would be passed and we all would be free. So in the morning of the day of the last exam (it was 31st of May) he decided to make it even in that day. I should talk more precisely about the morning of this day. The last exam was economics. I hadn't been preraring for this exam because the level of economics in my school weas really lower than one in the courses connected with HSE. So I came to exam, got the first available ticket, passed it and after passing my teacher told me that she wanted me to be her assistant on the exam. So, I had rather big amount of free time (I didn't know in that moment that I would have a party in the evening of this day) and I agreed. It was really funny to listen to my classmates who didn't know anything of economics, but wanted to get A. I was rather kind assistant and put A's to them all.

  Eventually, in 2:00 p.m. I was free but rather tired. I came home, ate and then suddenly I got a call from Anthony. He said that I should buy alcohol and in 2 hours I should be in the bus station. He made rather good arrangement: there were 7 people: one (Anthony) should have got keys of dacha from his father, two (Steven and Michael) should have bought meat and other food, two (Kostya and Dima) should have bought beer, and the last two (Andrew and me) should have bought something harder than beer. I phoned Andrew and he said that he would buy his part alone. So, I got my camera, bought whiskey and came to the station in time. We sat to the back of the bus and started singing songs. Eventually, we came to right station. The funny thing was that driver told us when we were going out of the bus, "Don't drink too much".

  The worst thing of this dacha is that you should go from the station to the house for about 40 minutes. So, we came, threw our clothes and ran to the river Don. All this was rather funny and something like brotherhood holiday but not the party. We swam, returned, made a bonfire, cooked meat, made a banya and started swelter. We just had fun, drank a little bit of beer. The midnight was near and we decided to go out of banya, sat in the table and precisely in midnight started drinking for the coming summer. In that moment I remembered that I got a camera with me. I found it and started shooting videos. In about 2:00 a.m.Andrew suggested to go to the forest, make a bonfire and sit and just telling stories. But I found that Michael (another one, not ne) wasn't able to go anywhere, so Steven and I decided to stay at home and protect him of breaking something. In that moment I found that was absolutely tired, so I made an arrangement to Steven do it alone. I fell to the bed and slept immediately.

  Morning... In the morning I found that other four people really came to the forest and was even sitting there for some time. And, unfortunately, Michael broke tap. We ate the last peaces of meat, and went to the bus station. It was the first day of the summer, very hot day. The worst thing was that it was my fault that I allow Andrew to buy alcohol by himself because he bought "not very qualitative" one. So we all had enormous headache. Eventually we came to this station and started waiting for the bus. We thought it would come in ten minutes, but it came after an hour of waiting. And we found ... that the bus broke down and wouldn't drive us to the town. We stayed alone in prairie. We decided to go the nearest village. We spent another hour on that travel. Eventually, we found a shop in the village and in that time Anthony's father drove and carried us all to the town.

  Not very interesting story. But I decided to write about it because it was unusual for in those time. Other parties were "real" parties with loud music and girls. But that one was very cozy and unforgetable.
  Thank you for attention.

7. Fashion is my profession.

  I really liked topic of Ksenia about fashion. I want to share my thoughts about this "social institution".

  Firstly, the title of this post. I have seen this phrase several times (it was written in Russian letters) in stupid pictures in the Internet in which people (especially girls) were laughing at other people because latter were trying to wear fashionable ctothes, but the outcome of their efforts was just a look of clown. Yes, I agree, this people are rather stupid. They are watching TV, reading fashionable magazines and dreaming of "beautiful life" with expensive cars and clothes. And of course, most of them don't have money to buy all these things. But people are trying to be more than they are in reality. Men are painting their cars and fasten some useless, but fashionable things to them. Women are buying expensive cosmetics and expensive dresses only because in the depth of this dress is writen a phrase "made in Italy". And they are really glad to know that their dress is from Italy (which is very doubtful) and maybe Angelina Jolie once wore the same dress in one of her numerous ceremonies. One week ago I was searching for watch. When an shop assistant was presenting me one watch, she added, "This is Spanish brand. The official face of this brand is Christiano Ronaldo". And what? Should I like it more if Ronaldo once made few photos with several watches of this firm? I can bet he didn't wear watch of this brand more than 2-3 times because he have enough money to buy Rolex or something in this price level. I admit that he is one of the best footbalists of our age, but this fact didn't affect on my choise to buy or not to buy that watch. But, I think I am a small exception from boys of 15-20 who know Ronaldo. Especially youngest ones. They didn't earn money, they don't know what is the price of money which their parents give them everyday. And of course, in age of 12-14 teenagers want to stand out of the pack and make everybody know that they are wearing watch from Ronaldo. It isn't a big problem if parents have enough money to but it, but it becomes a big problem when the family is poor and children after watching fashionable shows on MTV wants to be equal to those people from the TV. Once I read about sad story in which daughter was shouting on her mother because she refused to buy her Iphone and suggested to by something less expensive because they didn't have money for Iphone. The daugher started threatening to leave mother and go live somewhere with her friends. And the mother surrendered and boughts this overestimated device. Sad story.

  I wanted to make an accent on such an social body as "night life". Being a teenager, I saw beautiful pictures of beatiful people, who were relaxing in a fashionable place. There several organization in my town which were posting such photos. Then once I came to one of these places. I saw men who were just drinking alcohol in big companies or alone, women who wore their most expensive dresses to show that are cool ( many of them came to that only to find rich, but stupid man, who after a night with them may be fall in love with them and give money for the more expensive dress, or shoes, or buy Iphone 5. (As I saw in photos, the most fashionable which women were making photo with was the latest model of Iphone). After several hours of siting and talking about some stupid things fighting with extremely loud music I eventually fell asleep. After 20 minutes of sleeping administrator woke me up to maintain the atmosphere of endless happiness. This atmosphere could be broken if in the farther side of some photo was seen a little boy, sleeping on the table (I was 15). So I came through the crowd of dancing people, came to the toilet and saw an rather good looking man in age of about 23 who puking to the shell. That was the real atmosphere of this place. People came, drank, and then there was two ways: to drink to the extent that they can't undersstand anything or to find somebody to sex with and do it. Very beautiful life!

  In the end I want to say that I'm not an exception. I'm following fashion in some extent. I admit it, and I hate it. Fashion is an enormous machine which makes people buy things that they don't really need. The process of globalization made fashion even more powerful, and now it is invincible. I don't want to say something like "this is the root of all evil in over society", I just want to say that everybody choses follow it or not and in what extent.

  I know several people who completely ignore tendencies of fashion. I really respect them. May be their examples will help some people to make a right choise what they want to buy and what what places they want to spend their free time.

  Thank you for attention.

6. Difficulties of sex.

  Good title, don't you think so? But in this post I want to write about difficulties of being a man or a woman in our society and answer the question whose difficulties are bigger.

  My answer is women's difficulties are bigger.Historically men were responsible for feeding their family, protecting countries and had many other things to do, while women were rising children cleaning house and also had different other things in different times. As one wise man said, "This world was built by white men for white men". Now practically all men's responsibilities ended, but women's remains parts of our life.

  This is common information which everyone knows. I want to turn to specific level, the level of interaction between young boys and girls. Of course, as Andrew wrote in the topic, a man should be confident, masculine and may be smart and be able to earn money. But where is difficulties? This is things which are really attractive. Who can refuse to be confident? You can just do it. You should just overcome your fears. The similar things are about being strong clever and, eventually, earn money. You should just do these rather pleasant things and your will be like a dream. The contreary is about women. They should be mothers,(as I understood from some blogs, most girls are really afraid to be mothers. I hope this is temporary), they should clean the house, they should do many things, while men just "can" do many things. Women are more busy, but the real responsibility lies on men.

  Having these innate differences between men and women, I can say that I don't consider as unfair all those women's whims, scandals and also something like usage of men. They know how many things they must do when she becomes a wife and then mother, so she can joy before she married. And after marriage too, but not in so big extent.

  Women are the weaker sex, we should help them, gladden them and thank for life given to us and to our children.
  Love women, most of them deserve it!
  Thank you for attention.

5. People I like.

  I liked topic of Maria Temnikova about people's characters. Firstly, a want to distinguish girl's and boy's characters. Don't be a child and say that you shouldn't differentiate girls and boys. It's maybe was true for me around 15 years ago. Additionally, I don't really believe in strong friendship between man and woman. That is why I want to share my visions on people's character separately.
 
  Being a gentleman I want to start with girls. In my opinion, girl should be nice, maybe not physically but in her behavior with boys and society ( I have heard about girls' angry relations in only girls society. I haven't seen such societies in reality, so I can't judge about it). The must be friendly, but not empty. And, sincerely, I loves listening girls talking about some stupid things. Maybe I just haven't had such very talkative girls who can talk about one pair of shoes for hours, that is why I like listening girls. It should be different, sometimes crazy (of course this kind of madness shouldn't grow into into real madness. Just little flashes of madness). And of course girls should be rather shy and DON'T WRITE FIRST. Maybe one of two times but not more. In my opinion, all relationships which were started by a girl are doomed. I'm serious. If not a boy initially started relations then not a boy will put to continue them. Girl also should respect a man ( of course I'm talking about decent boys). You can call me a conservative and you will be right. I consider a woman as a weak person who needs the support of a man. That is why she should be different and emotional, and he should be more stable and calm.

  Boys. Boys are also very difficult people. Firstly, I don't like people who really waste their time. I hate this. He should be able to argue, not every time but sometimes. I had one friend who agreed with me on every point, not only with me but also with many others. He created an image that he didn't have his own opinion and it's one of the worst things that can happen with a man. If a man wouldn't show his opinion ( it's impossible to agree with everyone) he would be an outsider. Maybe not a complete outsider, but hardly he would be respected by others. The other feature of character of a friend of mine is an ability to think deep, to be able to argue. The difference between to features written above is evident in answers that can be told from the first group ( I agree with you) and from the second one ( I don't know). Of course man can't know all things in the world and be sophisticated in all social issies, but he should be just interested in it. People without interest are empty. And one more thing: man should have a goal. Maybe very long-term goal but it should exist.

  So, and one more feature that should exist an every person, as I wrote in one of the previous posts, is activity. You can be very man or woman, complicated or simple, emotional or calm, but you should be active. Without it you are nothing. You may have wide internal world but if in the surface I don't show your ideas and desires in reality you will be nothing.
  Be active, read blogs.
  Thank you for attention.

19. Topics for the post #4.

1) Do you have a person, sport, band or something else that you are really fan of?
2) How do you think what is the crucial point of success: individual abilities or social links? Can success be built only using your own power, without any help?
3) Would you prefer to raise your children in a big city like Moscow or in some more quiet place like Moscow region or farther?

18. The Great Theoretician.

  I really like the 3-rd topic of Ivan Mozharov which is about roles of theoretical knowledge and real practice in human's devepolment. In this post I want share with my thoughts on this question.

A.S. (Ante Scriptum) In this post I have several times deviated from the topic. So, if you wouldn't like the first 3-4 sentences, it's better for you not to read the others. Because in them I wrote absolute bullshit. Nevertheless, because it is my post and should be interested in reading it for as many people as possible, I would say "ENJOY!".

  So, let's watch one particular person who are planning and analyzing his of her decisions and their consequences. Usually many people imagine situations were they have never been in and thinking how they will act themselves in such situations. They also trying to predict the behavior of other people involved in their situations. And the more they are thinking about it, the more concerned of their rightness they become. They are trying to persuade other people in their rightness and they do it rather successfully because these "other people" who have never been thinking about such situation feel themselves relatively stupid in comparison with these "Great Theoreticians" who are sitting near them and talking about very interesting and rather clever ideas of people's behaviour. And after persuasion of several such "conceptually weak" persons people become even more concerned about their rightness of their theories and in this moment they become someones like fanatics of their ideas. In these stage you can't persuade them in their self-deception. The only one thing which can do it is real experience. After several times of failing of their theories in reality it's become obvious that they were wrong and the reality is different from their models. They are getting depressed. Their desires are broken. Now they should transform their approach to the world and it is very difficult. ( Despite of the fact that many "Great Theoreticians" eventually understand treir falsity, there several people who became really famous with their ideas. For example, Sigmund Freid, with his concept of connetion of all human's thoughts with their sexual desires).

  But the situations of the "Great Thereoticians" appear quite rare. (if such mad guys really exist) The more usual situation is when human is just thinking what about he or she might do in different situations. He or she thinks that they know how they would behave themselves, but their real decisions might be absolutely different. People don't know themselves. They think they know, but it is wrong. The classical barriers which appear when human face the reality are fear, lust and uncertainty which is, actually, the consequence of the fear. That is why it is essentually important to know themselves, which they can do from being in different situation, in other words, from their experience. Only when you know patterns of your own behaviour and a lot of cases of other people's behaviour, you can very approximately predict decisions of other people. And when can predict the decisions of different people you can rule their decision. And then, you can do everything. You are powerful. You are "The Great Practician".

  Your logical commnt now could be like, "What was it?". But, I wrote it because several years ago I was somebody like stupid "The Great Theoretician". As most boys of 13-15 years old I was mad of girls. While all my friends were just chasing girls with flowers and stupid phrases like, "I love you. I can't live without you", I was concerned that no one, neither girls nor boys, want to have a some fanatic near them who is ready to die in your name. I thought it is just uninteresting to have such a slave. So, I didn't chase girls, just talk with them or look at them several times. I called it "Scientific Seduction". How absurdly. But this "approach" worked several times. I even conducted several experiments when I was in summer camp. My friend even started asking me for advice. Now I can say that it was really funny. But then I understood that this "scheme" worked only for some stupid, ugly girls who even write you first and so on, and that you should put much efforts to conquer your Queen. So I left my stupid theories (that was the most bright of them), but they sometimes still appear in my mind. Sometimes.
 
  In one song which my friend Gleb showed be several months ago this process of appearing of controversial thoughts in your mind, like chase or not to chase, is called "The War with the mind" (Война с головой). I really appreciated these song because it clearly describes the difficult process of making decisions which happens every day in everyone's mind.

  So, in answer to Ivan's question I answer "practical experience". You shouldn't think all the time. You should just do what you want and be yourself.

  "The war with the mind, but the last battle won't answer most questions".

  Thank you for attention. 

17. The Decline of the School Education.

   I decided to write a post on topic #1 of Irina Arkhipova "When you visited your school the last time? Write about your feelings". But I won't my feelings about school education that I came through, so I know reality of it.
  I was studying in the most famous "physical-mathematical" school in my city which was known for her genious students in the Soviet times. But the USSR crashed, and with it crashed many good schools in Russia. Best teachers, who had an opportunity, left Russia, others continued teaching, but good teachers were leaving school because of their age. But school still has a little number of good teachers who are trying to make good students.
  As in every society, there are people in my school, who just do their work without any enthusiasm, receive their salary and don't care about anything. This kind of a human was my form-master. She was old woman, who hadn't been teaching for about last 5 years and whose job was just into making students wear their uniform. But nobody wore. So she was just annoying us every day. We didn't like her and vice versa. But she was the first human who I met with when I came to school during my winter holidays. I really didn't want to meet her, but I needed because the month before she called my mother I said that she need my olympiad diploma, but it was in Moscow, so I gave it to her only went I returned home. Diploma was needed for application for some scholarship. But I asked her about that scholarship, she answered that she didn't know anything, no title, no date of application, no even who this scholarship was given by. I understood that I don't I wouldn't get any information from her and left her rather quickly.
   But I had one more teacher who I ought to visit. It was my economics teacher. She must be decribed in particular paragraph. Her main job was job in Voronezh State University, but during last 20 years she was conducting such an experiment which was called "economics group in physical-mathematical". This idea came to her and our headmaster (who is sitting in her chair since 1984), in early 90-s where good economists were really needed. According to her, all students from these groups were becoming very good economists and then were becoming very wealthy ( the causual-effect link was very doubtful, because many students from such groups had good mathematical knowledge, and then were entering well-known universities), but she continued to claim her impact on them was crucial in their career. But all people in school, except her, knew the reality, which was evident in last 5 years. People joined such groups only in one purpose: to save themselves from very hard physics cources and have an ability to do nothing in school.
   So I met her. She made me tell them, people who were teaching in such a group this year, about NES and all. What could talk with them about if they even didn't know what is Marginal costs ot rate of unemployment? And these people consider themselves as future good economists. And such a situation was happening in all groups in our school. People were coming to high school only in one purpose: to prepare for their final exams. They didn't care about other subjects because grades in their graduate certificates could't influence on their university entrance. And, what is the most regretful thing, teachers of these "other" subjects admit this state of affairs. And, eventually, students after graduation from school know only 3 or 4 subjects, which were required for entrance. And one more disaster is in the way how they know them. They know standards of writing these exams. I think, if student were given another exams which required the same knowledge, but had another structure, only a half of them did them correctly.
   As I heard, Russian government during last year are writing a law, which will require money for school education. Most Russians are absolutely against this law because they consider education as state obligation. But, in my opinion, if such a law will attach only high school, it will have only consequences because, as I said, in the high school students bother only about their exams and don't receives knowledge on other subjects. As was written in one myth from "Myths of economics" by Sergei Guriev, if people pay for their education, then they consider it useful. So, may be possibility of paid high school education is not a big disaster.
   So, in answer to question about feeling after visiting my school I can say that I felt purposelessness of students, futility of teachers' attempts to teach people who were not intrested in studying, and decay of system of education. And this is the best school in rather big city.
   And it's sad.

16. What about your first week of the semester.

 I think every person at the begining of the new semester swears that he or she would study hard, read all literature and don't waste time on different needless things like social networks or computer games. As for my faculty, I have found one more rather unusual thought: students want to study, they found it very interesting because they have chosen their classes by their own. So, at the begining of the semester all people are ready to study.
  I am, of course, not an exception, and wasn't it at the beginning of the previous semester. But I remember how during the previous semester I found my courses not so interesting. Of course, I didn't stop learning it as several students did, but I was doing it without much efforts and couldn't make myself put much of it. It really frustrated me, because I understood that I can did more. Nevertheless I didn't became the last in rating and received rather good marks.
  The second semester, I'm sure, would be absolutely different. Firstly, math. In the first semester we were learning calculus, large part of which I learned at school and, that's why, wasn't very interested in it. This semester we would study linear algebra and, the thing that I am really interested in, the theoretical base of informatics. The fisrt lections were really interesting, and, as our informatics teacher said, "these are the simplest things, next week my lectures will make your brain explode". Secondly, economics. I really love economics models and mathematical methods in economics and hate to write essays. That is why, economics was a real disaster for me in the previous semester. Despite the economics classes haven't started yet, I think they will be very interesting because they are one of the best economics classes in Russia. Thirdly, history of international relations. I am still doubt about decision to get this course, because only 5 (!) people chose it. In the last class only 3 people (Andrew Macmahon, one second-year student and I) were in class. Most people who were learning history in the previous year said that it is very difficult course, and you won't receive a mark higher than 6. But it didn't stop me. I am very interested in this course, because I love history, I don't know much information about Cold War and I really want to develop my English skills (the fact that only 6 people attend, so I will have an opportunity to talk in English for rather long time during classes makes that course very attractive). Finally, English. I hadn't big amount of things to do during the holidays. After 10 days of holidays I got tired of relaxation and doing nothing. So, I opened course syllabus, found 3 books which were going to read during the semester in Internet and read them during 10 days. But, only in Russian. So when we were talking about in the first class about "what do you think these books about" I already knew the answer. I can say that I found them all very interesting. I heard about "Catcher" from my friends many time, but I didn't expect that it is so interesting. I read it in 2 nights. As from "1984" it is real theory of building totalitarian state and compelling people. Very frightening, but extremely interesting. And the last book is an opportunity to see how "unusual" person see this world (and this book was also very interesting because of mathematical additions).
  So I can say that during first period I understood that I have chosen courses that are very interesting to me and I will do as much as possible to study hard.
  P.S. If I would do so, I can flick me and say that I am a lazy liar. I am not joking, I am serious.