To me, almost any sport events may be interesting to watch. When switching TV channels I accidentally turn on a sports I am not familiar with, I expect to see two things: 1. There is a close score between the teams, or participants. In other words, the competition's result is not predictable. 2. The commentator can keep my attention on by not just voicing what is happening, but telling some facts and explaining rules, especially if it is unpopular (in my country) sport, such as cricket or American football. During big multisport events (like Olympics) I can watch any sports, because there are best athletes and the result is (usually) unpredictable. However, I don't like combat sports, as martial arts, boxing or judo. It is either boring or too cruel to me.

If the qiestion is about video games, I would say they are useful for reducing stress and improving cognitive abilities at some point. For example, playing strategic games helps me to be more creative at my job while playing action games improves reaction and focus. But, at the same time, spending to much time playing computer games is harmful for your physical conditions, such as spine, posture, possibly vision. So, it is ok to play computer games, if not too much.

Hi! Almost a year passed since I have written previous post here. This year was the most challenging and exciting of my life so far. I got an opportunity to study in one of the best Russian sports University on International Master of Sports Administration program. I met many wonderful and passionate people there. First, my classmates from all over the world - Belgium, Ecuador, Saint Kitts and Nevis, India and many more - with whom I passed through all the academic difficulties and spent a lot of joyful minutes. Second, awesome Professors, who have taught us many sports related disciplines and provided an in-depth knowledge of different management aspects. And, finally, the University staff, who have supported and motivated us throughout all the period of studying. All this, among other things, gave me the unique opportunity to practice English. Its level is still lower than I would like to, but I feel I'm getting better in it.

Only month before I went to another city for almost a year. Hello! Two weeks ago I got an email in which was said that I won a scholarship for studying in a Sports Managment program. And that was the moment I realised than my dream comes true! I have been studying English for a nine month as a daily basis for being able just to send my application. And, of course, I still wery bad at it... But nevertheless, I've been chosen! I will move to another city more than 2500km from the place I grown and spent entire life! I travelled to several cities for work inside my country, and abroad for travelling. But I have never lived there longer than couple of weeks. It's frightening be a bit. Since that day I am going to get back to my English studying. And I hope that I will not fail at a time of my first lecture. In general, this month is going to be very hard to me. I am already signed my statement of dismissal from work where I spent awesome 3.5 years. I have a lot personal things to be done, such as medical check, repairing my laptop, composing a list of stuff I am going to take with me, etc... The saddest thing thit will happen - my girlfriend and I decided that she won't go with me due to her job and our plans after my education. So, we will live separatly for this period. For me it is really hard, even to think about it, as well as for her. But I believe everything is going to be fine.

I'm lucky, and maybe you are too. There is become harder and harder for me to write about my daily stuff because for now, every day is like the day before. The main purpose I am writing is to improve my English skills. Instead of writing about what I did this week, I have to dive deep into my feelings and dig out of them my attitudes towards the situation in the world. After a month of sitting in my flat in the middle of Russia, I began to realize that I am a really lucky guy in contrast to most people. I even want to count the lucky counts. Some of them are very mundane, but anyway. I paid out my mortgage the month before quarantine in my city was declared. If I had lost my job, the problem with payments wouldn’t have bothered me. But I didn’t lose my job. Even my salary has not decreased, despite the fact that I am not actually working for now. So I've got plenty of time, and it happened at the exact moment when my English level becomes well enough to read and watch educational videos without Russian subtitles and checking vocabulary every 5 minutes. I think it is the first time in my life when I am using my free time really effectively. I started reading Reddit since the previous week. Also, I’ve discovered Quora. I registered at EDX and, OMG, how many useful courses are there! I spent all previous week reading recommendations and scrolling lists of free courses without the ability to choose one or two of them! Of course, we have a lot of resources and free educational courses in Russian. But there are big differences between quality, quantity, and in the ease of finding. I had tried studying English since I was 20 (I also studied it at school). But only after 9 years I've reached any meaningful level. And I am wondering what if I did it then! How much could I learn… I don’t know if it’s appropriate but I would say that if you guys have the ability of understanding English (of course you have!) and for now you don’t have any real problems related to this situation (I certainly hope so) you definitely should spend this time wisely.

How I was impressed by Reddit. Note #10. Hello! Here I am, still sitting at home and studying. At the end of the previous week, I decided to make my studying process more interesting and fun. The reason is I have believed my English skills are good enough to study some info that correlates with my main job. First of all, I signed to a short Coursera sports marketing free course that contains around 12 hours of materials, both text and video. For now, I am in the middle of it. Today I was reading news sites and there was told that we most likely won't go for work soon. Initially, we would have to get back to work on the 19 of April. As the number of ill people in Moscow is increasing, we sadly have had that increase too. There said we will be obliged to receive passes to be able to go outside. In my case, as I wrote before, it's not so bad. Unlike many others, I didn't lose my job. In addition to a short "sports marketing" course, I wanted to start writing about my progress in studying hockey details, negotiation rules, salary cap rules and so on. I made some researches today to find a place where I will be able to write it. The idea was to make posts on any of specialized hockey sites and duplicate them here, to kill two birds by one stone - to improve English skills through writing texts about NHL from the very beginning level. After a couple of hours of searching, I find Reddit. I heard about it, but I have never explored it. It is not popular in Russia, as far as I know, because it is in English. When I found a hockey tread, I was shocked. The amount of info about hockey there was extremely huge! I spend more than an hour just exploring the links list on the "AMA" page. I haven't even started to learn a single long post. I think I find what to do during the extended quarantine. And I decide not to publish anything there yet :) Here's how I spent the last few days since my latest note :) P.S. I received two great revisions on my previous note. And, as always, I want to say thank you very much for your help and time!

When the studying plan has been changed. Note #9 Greetings friends! So much time passed since my latest note here… 2 weeks ago I was super motivated to keep studying English. I created an ultimate schedule which includes plenty of lessons. I had worked with teachers both online and at my University. The plan was to study 5 days per week for around 4 hours every day. But everything is gone after 1 week of taught and productive studying. At this time it wasn't my fault. Two weeks before most of organizations in my city were closed, I decided to take 1 week off at my work to chill off my job and focused on learning English. I am working at the kids' sports school, and I had assumed that it is possible that we will have been closed. Of course, my colleagues and I were well informed about the virus situation. We have faced a lot of situations when schools became closed for a couple of weeks because of the flu. Actually, it's a pretty obvious thing at my work and happened almost every year in February-March. But this time is much worse. At the beginning of my job-off week, I got all of my University lessons canceled. One of my online teacher changed her schedule to be able to work with schoolboys, whose studying became suspended. At the end of the week, all the people in our country had listened to the President's speech about mandatory self-isolation. Everything turned upside down. Instead of many others, I didn't lose my job. And in my city, we have less than 50 cases of sickness out of over one million citizens. But in general, it's frightening. Especially when patrols go around the city, and military trucks spray protective substances. It lasted for a couple of days. Anyway, I find only one way to do with all of my time now and it's studying English. Since today I have at least 10 more days for self-improvement. I hope everything will be better after that time. That's it. Stay healthy! :)