A message for the freshers

As a student who has almost done with the Modern English Course, I’d like to let you in on some secrets of effective training. Hope they’ll help you to make a good progress in mastering English and to gain excellent marks.

To start with, try to organize your dictionary in a productive way which would contribute greatly to your better understanding of the word families and more efficient memorizing them. Of course, you’ll be required to cover a lot of ground, not only hitting set texts, but also jotting down nice collocations related to the topic. Pay attention, it’s not necessary to cram all active vocabulary – just try to single out the most difficult collocations and go through them with your group mates, making as many sentences as possible. In this way, you will definitely avoid having utter chaos in your head and encountering some difficulties with unfamiliar words. The more you brush up on them, the better.

Secondly, you have to take your blog assignments seriously, as this is the best way of learning through practice. The main thing is, don’t put them off until the last night. It’s not as hard as it sounds – just undergo your laziness and get down to writing. When you get inspired later on, it’ll be no problem to brush up on the first draft. Meeting deadlines is quite stressful, so the most sensible decision would be to write your blog assignments in advance.

Talking about myself, it’s my firm conviction that thanks to this course I’ve got an excellent grasp of how to use loads of new collocations, idioms and phrasal verbs in a proper way. Frankly speaking, it wasn’t all as easy as ABC – I put a real effort to memorize all the stuff and sometimes had to burn the midnight oil, especially during the session weeks (a student’s real character, lol), but now I enjoy the fruits of my hard work, which is really thrilling. It goes without saying, I must give a credit to my teacher Tetiana Oleksandrivna for having taught me not to back down too fast (to tell you the truth, it was the underlying enemy number one in my studies).

Leaping to conclusions, I hope my pieces of advice will come in useful for you and by the end of the Modern English Vocabulary course you’ll have got a genuine elation from it. Just keep calm and study hard!:)

A Greener World

Since ancient times people have been destroying nature in their search for food, housing and fuels. Deceiving themselves that natural resources were boundless, they cut down forests to get timber, mined fossil fuels, built houses, roads and factories. Today we face sad consequences of man’s activities which are reflected in different environmental problems such as air, river and sea pollution, the greenhouse effect, energy crisis and many others. From a beautiful fairy land Ukraine is being turned into a treeless area, where millions of cars and thousands of factories emit toxic smoke into the air we breathe in. It seems green policies in this country haven’t moved with the times and remain ineffective. It’s absolutely vital that we must prevent the environmental catastrophe. Hence, I’d like to present my own vision of the ways out in the project on environmental development of Ukraine in the next 15 years called “Green Ukraine 2030”. 

To begin with, while efforts to recycle household waste are still a partial solution, a groundbreaking task for the Ukrainian government is to introduce green taxes for the overproduction of hardly-recyclable items, such as plastic bottles and metal cans. As for households, Ukrainians should opt for recycled products and not hesitate to reuse scrap paper, old wood & clothes.

Secondly, in order to minimize soil pollution farmers should be highly recommended to use less chemical fertilizers and pesticides for plants. This would help to maintain sustainable agriculture throughout the country.

Also, we should mind the dangerous signs of the irreversible climate change like widespread flooding in the Carpathian region and changed weather patterns. Fighting deforestation and reducing air pollution would be effective ways to lessen the problem.

 Sadly but true that the greatest polluters are transport vehicles which emit exhaust fumes. Thus, the best solution to reduce our carbon footprint  would be to switch to hybrid cars. The advantages are but vivid: they’re eco-friendly, energy saving and can work simply from rechargeable batteries. Still, for those who can’t afford this kind of vehicle, the beneficial option would be using bicycles for short journeys and maintaining old vehicles in good condition. 

What is more, we should bear in mind that deforestation upsets the oxygen balance being a real threat to the endangered species. It’s our shame that a lot of wild animals are now on the verge of extinction. A moral task of everyone is to help them survive. It’s not as hard as it sounds – we should stop buying products made from endangered animals & plants but instead donate to animal welfare schemes. The Government should assist in creating more natural reserves to preserve natural habitats of wild animals. Simply planting a tree near our house can be beneficial for wildlife and make the air cleaner.

Last but not least, Ukrainians should develop alternative energy sources for homes, as long as lack of resources like water & fossil fuels demands more efforts from  us to use them rationally. Building homes with solar heating and eco-friendly design have to be highly encouraged by the Government. In the long run, all households should switch to energy-saving eco light bulbs as they reduce our energy consumption and last for longer.

Taken together, all these suggestions are sure to bring about positive changes to the Ukrainian green policies and to make our Motherhood greener. With sufficient will, we CAN always find a groundbreaking solution!

A Sound Mind In a Sound Body

Story on People’s Relationships

THE BEST IS YET TO COME

 

Never in her wildest dreams had Nancy ever thought that Paul would tell her this, “I’m sorry, but I don’t love you any more”. The long-awaited letter from her boyfriend made this model-like girl with an angelic oval face framed by a shoulder-length jet-black hair the unhappiest creature in the whole world. A real character some minutes ago, who gave the impression of a stubborn and optimistic person, now Nancy looked down in the dumps – she understood that she had lost her LOVE…
Tears filled the girl’s eyes when she remembered the last day before leaving for Chester. Always calm and a bit diffident Paul was then close to throwing a tantrum. The guy couldn’t find necessary words to talk her out of taking the job with Chester Holidays. But Nancy, who wanted to do something different before going straight to college after school accused him of having a selfish streak. After all, it was her life and at the age of 18 she had to make her own decisions. And Nancy made. Unfortunately, not in Paul’s favor.
If only she had listened to Paul, but not to her best friend Laura then! This confident ginger-haired girl with striking appearance was obviously getting Paul’s nose when she approved Nancy’s wish to try the job of a tour guide advertised on the BBC Radio-4. It was she who, as a real know all, assured the doubtful girl that it was but her cup of tea – sticking to Geography and languages.
 “What’s the matter, love? Why are you crying?” asked Julia, with whom Nancy worked in the same group at Chester Holidays, entering the hotel bar.
–      I’m feeling homesick and depressed. I wish I hadn’t taken this stupid job.
–       Why?
–      I’ve got a letter from my lover Paul this morning. I thought the world of him but… He says he doesn’t love me anymore because we’ve drifted apart during this separation and he’s going to get engaged to my best friend Laura.
–      The rat! How dare he make a fool out of you having an affair with your… best friend! 
–      No, it’s not his fault. I can’t blame him. Paul didn’t want me to take this job. He felt very miserable after I had left home! Then he and Laura went out together a few times and now they’re…Oh, I feel so broken!

“Come on. There’s no need for tears. You’ll come to terms with it. The best is yet to come,” Julia did her best to sooth her poor group mate. But no soothing words could cure Nancy’s broken heart.  Even if the best was yet to come…

The Struggle Is My Life: Nelson Mandela

“A winner is a dreamer who never gives up”. These words belong to the first black president of the South-African Republic Nelson Mandela, whose life long fight against the apartheid regime and racial prejudice brought him a brilliant success after 27 years spent in prisons. Is it possible, you may ask, to stand up for liberty, averting at the same time a civil war in your country? For Nelson Mandela, it was. Having won the respect of his compatriots as the Father of the Nation, he had an excellent grasp of how to do it. Among all towering figures of the 20th century history I find Nelson Mandela especially inspiring because he made a breakthrough in preserving peace in his Motherland and showed to the whole world how wisdom and patience could triumph over the brute force. 
           Born in a tiny village in Transkei, South Africa on July 18^th 1918 to a family of Gadla Henry, a respected advisor to the Thembu royal family, Rolihlahla Mandela was later renamed “Nelson” by one of his teachers because his previous name meant “troublemaker”. Numerous stories about the ancestors’ valour during the wars of resistance had a huge effect on the boy who dreamt of making his own contribution to the struggle for freedom. Nelson made good progress with his school studies and gained good marks at the University College of Fort Hare but did not complete the degree of BA as he was expelled for joining a student demonstration. Nevertheless, in 1942 he continued his education at the University of the Witwatersrand qualifying in law. Soon Nelson became considerably involved in the political opposition to the white minority regime. After joining the African National Congress (ANC) he assisted in founding its more dynamic Youth League in 1944.

Meanwhile, in 1948 the National Party came to power and began to implement a policy of "apartheid", or forced segregation on the racial basis. It was then, when the ANC staged a campaign of passive resistance against apartheid laws and soon Mandela together with his friend Oliver Tambo established South Africa’s first black law firm, Mandela and Tambo. Nelson became the National Volunteer-in-Chief of the Defiance Campaign against six unjust laws that caused an uproar in the government, and, as the leader, he was sentenced to nine months hard labor for civil disobedience.
     Initially committed to non-violent mass struggle, Mandela and his colleagues accepted the case for armed action after shooting of unarmed protesters at Sharpeville in March 1960 and banning of anti-apartheid groups. Appointed the commander-in-chief of the ANC's military branch called “The Spear of the Nation”, Nelson Mandela secretly left South Africa on January 11^th 1962 using the adopted name David Motsamayi. He travelled around the continent and to England to attract the support for the armed struggle. But the hopes were totally dashed when on his return in July 1962 Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for planning the guerrilla warfare to overthrow the government. Two years later, Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment. Those were the years that made him an international symbol of freedom, equality and resistance to apartheid. 
     Only after 27 years the political prisoner was released. It happened on February 11^th 1990 when the ban on the ANC was lifted. Three years later Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the running President de Klerk for their remarkable achievements in ending apartheid. In 1994 he enjoyed even more fruits of his hard revolutionary work when all races were allowed to vote in the presidential elections. Nelson won the campaign and became the President of SAR. Despite the threats of violence which was about to break out several times after that, Mandela managed to keep the calm and prevent a major civil war in the country. This was, perhaps, the crowning achievement of all his life.
     …The great peace activist passed away at the age of 95 on December 5^th 2013 of a lung infection. To finish up, I’d like to remind his quote, which is so up-to-date concerning the situation in Ukraine: “Those who sought their freedom in domination of others were doomed in time to ignominious failure”.