An opinion essay: Health or wealth? "You have recently had a class discussion about the importance of taking care of your health. Now your English teacher has asked you to write an essay giving your opinions on the following statement: It is more important to be healthy than to be rich." In my opinion, it more depends on every particular person choices in life and it has a little influence of external factors. Someone can decide that it's more important to be rich, than healthy and this decision has its advantages. If a person chooses this way of living than he or she might experience the life more fully and in a more vibrant way because money can give lots of opportunities to get such emotions. But this way of living can shorten the person's life pretty much and it can appear that you can't take all this money to the other side, but you still haven't experienced happiness. On the other hand, if a person chooses, that his or her health is more important than money, then it might occur that eventually he or she won't get enough money to stay healthy. It appears to me that we should balance between these two choices. We should work pretty hard to get enough money to be healthy, but when it comes to earn more money or get rest and recharge yourself I think it's very important not to overwork and get ill because of that. Basically, my opinion is every person should work hard but it's vitally important to give yourself some rest because it's in our nature. Everybody needs to sleep and to eat and to spare some free time for fun.

practice Q: What are the pros and cons of owning a pet? I have a pet. It's a wonderful sweet cat. So I'm on the side of pet owners, but not all of them. On one hand it's a very good experience of compassion. Because a pet can't care of itself and you have to help it anyway. It needs to be feed, bathed and go to the toilet. But in return you get a joy of communication with it and as some people think - its love. I'm not sure about love, but some of them are getting used to people and they wait them from work and trying to communicate when a human is finally arrived home. I think it can reduce stress from work and vanish a little some bad things, that happen in our lives. On the other hand - sometimes pets are very noisy. And they can damage things at home. Depending which animal you have you will have different damages. And dogs have to be walked. And every nice person must clean the shit after his/hers beautiful doggy. I haven't seen anyone in Russia doing this. In the end I can say that I like pets very much. But only those, who are already domesticated. I hate people who took a wild animal from nature and left it at home. Or those ones who buy exotic animals like lemurs.

practice: If you had to be raised by animals in the wild, what animals would be the best parents? I personally believe in Darwin's theory, thus I think gorillas or orangutangs should be the best parents. Because we are very close to them with our DNA and other little ties. I mean who else can teach a human to hold a stick and to use it as a weapon or a tool? I don't think that monkeys are the cleverest animals on the Earth, but they are just our very distant relatives. It would be great to grow up in a dolphin's family or in a lion's family, or maybe in an elephant's family! However I think it can't be, just because we are so different. I don't believe that wolves can grow a human either.

I've read a book in English I've recently read a book by Charles Bukowski called "Pulp". I've liked it. It definitely has an atmosphere. My wife recommended it to me, so I decided to read. But she read it in Russian and I read it in English for good practice. The book contains lots of swear words and I've read it out loud at home. From the beginning of it I had a feeling, that I read somthing low-grade, but I changed my mind as I reached the middle of it. It turned into something addictive for me. What happens in book on one hand is something mundane and on the other hand is something very deep philosophical. And if you will decide to read it I strictly recommend to read until the end. The ending pushed some interesting thoughts. It also happens after a good book. I enjoyed reading very much. It was my first book I read in English.

What role do animals play in law enforcement? In a way of law enforcement I have only heard about dogs. And I know two ways how dogs can help the police. Dogs can look for something because of their sensible nose. It can be drugs or kind of exlposive things. Also dogs can catch criminals, who are trying to escape from the law.They can do it because they are faster then people and they have good teeth. Yes. If I would be a criminal I would not wanted to have a deal with a police dog. They only can not shoot from the guns, so the criminal can shoot it. If he can't then the dog will win =) Oh I've just remembered another animal - horses. I heard that police officers in New York use them to patrol streets and other places. I am not sure why do they do so. Maybe it is good to patrol big parks where you can't drive and you should have an opportunity to move fast if needed. Let me know, if you know any other animals used in law enforcement.