#moreфон2018 Day 30. It's the last day of the challenge I decided to take a month ago thanks to Dmitry More and his YouTube channel. I find this experience, well, interesting and really challenging, but not that helpful, actually. I'm still procrastinating, instead of diligent self-preparation for my TOEFL-exam. I can't see any improvements in my writing in English, as well. BUT, one really wonderful thing did happen. And it's the fact, that I discovered this amazing community of people, who are sharing their thoughts and struggle here, on iTalki. I mean there is a guy, who post essays every day, and the last one I read was number 386?! What a motivation, I sincierly admire such people! And there are also so many people with a very impressive command of English, which is their second, third or eve fourth language. I'm binge reading all these notes and can't help myself commenting and liking their notes. So, guys, thank you for reading this, thanks Dmitry and iTalki-creators! Let's keep on moving! Let's learn! Let's speak and help each other!

#moreфон2018 Day 29. Here is another essay I wrote. “Write about something ugly — war, fear, hate, or cruelty–but find the beauty in it.” After reading the topic, one thing immediately came to my mind – the phenomenon of Hoovervilles, which definitely was negative, but at the end of the day something really good came out of it. If you are not familiar with the term “Hooverville”, let me explain it and tell a touching story that happened in the years of the Great Depression in the United States. I think we should firstly look at the etymology of the word Hooverville. In the root of it we can see the last name of the 31st President of the US – Herbert Hoover, notoriously famous for being the leader of the country in the hardest years of struggle for millions of Americans, the years of the Great Depression. There is also the suffix -ville, which is commonly added to the names of small towns, like Brownsville, Victorville and so on. To understand the phenomena of Hoovervilles better, we should keep in mind that thousands of those people, who became homeless then – they were not drug users, bums or some renegades, they were hard working people with families and values, who had just been kicked out from their jobs because of the collapse of the stock market. About a quarter of the US population was unemployed. People were being evicted from their houses with hungry kids, crying wives and elderly parents all across the country. Where could they go? Nobody was hiring, factories had been closed, companies had gone bankrupt, all friends and relatives were just in the same desperate situation. So, people started living in the streets: under the bridges, on roads shoulders, on public lands where they would built shacks from cardboard, wood, stones, anything what they could find. The authorities were showing no compassion to people in need, systematically burning and destroying those “camps”, offering no alternative, no other shelter or place to live. Although the shacks were put up in disorder in Hoovervilles, the communities did not give the appearance as being chaotic, insane tribes. People organized self-administrations and even elected mayors who represented them in negotiations with local authorities. In Hoovervilles people of all colors, nationalities and backgrounds lived together, sharing the same bitter destiny. All social and cultural differences did not play any role anymore, the residents were united in one community with a strong sense of comradery.

#moreфон2018 Day 28. Today I practiced my writing. I wrote the essay on the topic "Do you need education to succeed in life?" Of course, education does not guarantee success. Success is not attached to your diploma. But we still need to get education. Here are some reasons why. There are certain jobs that you cannot do without university education. You can not get your degree in law from “The Law and the Order” and you cannot become a cardiologist by binge watching “Dr House”. You must walk a long way. Universities teach regular habits like to read a lot, to work systematically and to be attentive to deadlines. At universities students are taught how to think, how to analyze phenomena. They accumulate knowledge for their future jobs. Studying at college can also improve social skills. Speaking about how education impacts future success, we should answer the question: what is success? Is it a vital necessity - to be successful? I do not think that there are two types of people – successful ones and losers, I believe, that there are people who need to please their ego through others acknowledgment and those who do not need it. Success, money and recognition are just side effect of hard labor and long doing of what you like. And as any side effect sometimes they manifest, sometimes they do not. Education is not about success, it is about self-respect and dignity. It is something that distinguish us from other animals. For me education is an ultimate value, I think that obtaining knowledge is one of a few really good things, you can do in life. When a person is educated, he/she starts seeing things more clearly, we now can realize how complex the world is. And today when there are so many sources of education (books, online universities, courses, webinars, etc.) it is literally a crime not to educate yourself. If someone does not have college degree, it does not mean they will fail their lives, or they will one hundred percent prosper. But if you do not educate yourself you will, for sure, fail your natural ability to develop in something bigger than just an eating, sleeping and reproducing creature. I think that when people denounce universities, they choose a wrong target for criticism. There is nothing bad in college education. The fact that a few can afford it is bad. Education is one of our basic needs. It must not be the privilege, it must not be luxury, it is must not be for elites, it must be for everyone!

#moreфон2018 Day 27. Today I practiced the reading part of the TOEFL test. I took a sample-test and scored only 22 points (75% of my answers were correct). Well, it seems to me, it's time to shift my attention from the speaking part to reading. I wrote down some new words: feasible (can be implemented or fulfilled), devise (invent, make up), arduous (complicated or difficult to do), passage (a part of the text), to pale (to become less significant, to lose color), adjacent (neighboring), virtually (actually, in fact), subsequent (the following). Today I've also finished listening to another great podcast which is "Gladiator" - the story of rising and falling the star of American football player Aaron Hernandez, a talented athlete, who had everything - the family, money, an outstanding career, but suddenly lost it all, committed a triple homicide and took his life in prison. The journalists from The Boston Globe related his behavior to multiple brain injuries he'd had and with the necessity to lie about his homosexuality in a homophobic and super masculine environment of NFL. I think they did a great job, investigating this case.

#moreфон2018 Day 26. Today I'm going to have a lesson with a new teacher. Her name's Rose and it's said in her profile that she's been preparing her students for TOEFL as well. That's exactly what I need now, since there are too many resources and books on the Internet and I have now idea what to start with and how to organize my preparation properly. It's been 26 days since I started my self-preparation and I think I stuck at some point. Of course, I continue taking practice tests and working on my vocabulary. But as any English learner I'm looking for some magic advice and method that will drastically boost my skills. Well. we'll see if my new teacher turns out to be that wizard :)

#moreфон2018 Day 25. Today’s post is going to be off topic. Normally, I describe my preparation for the TOEFL exam. But this time I want to bring up a controversial subject of correction of errors. If someone posts their notes here, on iTalki, it automatically means that native speakers are welcomed to correct mistakes. But let ask ourselves, whether it works or not?! I can see some issues with it. 1. CORRECTING someone’s mistake does NOT mean TEACHING him/her to speak or to write. 2. Instead of correcting, I would EXPLAIN why this/that is wrong and another variant is right. 3. It is amazing, when not the grammar mistakes are corrected but the style! Each learner has its personal style of writing, we cannot limit anyone’s self-expression and marginalize his or her style of writing. 4. When a learner is at intermediate or upper-intermediate level, the main issue that he/she faces is insecurity. Believe me, those people whose essays you are correcting struggle with fear of speaking and being corrected. So, what you consider as “help”, does NOT help. 5. I think, it is inappropriate when a non-native-speaker corrects other learners’ notes. Let the experts do their job! 6. Finally, if you cannot help yourself correcting others, do not forget at least to praise and motivate the student, say something pleasant, motivate them to keep moving! So, as you can see, I do not appreciate the corrections.