#5. My theater experience

Have you ever performed in a play? Are you a good actor? Write about your theater experience. (Tim Volozh's topic)

When I read Tim's blog topics, there were no doubts for me to write about my theater experience, especially about event when I performed a play.

At the beginning, I'd like to say that until the 10th grade I wasn't fond of play as an actor. However, during the 11th grade I "fell in love" with poetry (I wrote about this in the topic #2), and then it became interesting to me to play as an actor one day. There wasn't hard to do it, though.
Firstly, I became read poetry on stage at school and did it for many holidays. I was very happy to do it! I was always attracted moments when all auditorium look at you, hear to you, and then applause to you. 

Unfortunately, having finished school, I don't have any opportunities to read poetry on stage, but sometimes me and my friends organize "poetry reading" on weekends in the dormitory (Recently, there was a "poetry reading" devoted to Eduard Asadov's poetry). In these moments, I feel myself happy. 

What about my real theater experience, I had it in the Krasnoyarsk Summer School. There was a final concert which was devoted to closing of the season-2012. As you possibly know, I worked at the KSS as a tutor. That day, all tutors had to prepare some mini-scenes for the concert.  Me and my colleagues were full of ideas for mini-scenes, but finally we decided to show the auditorium two comedy scenes. The first was a funny story about love triangle in which participants showed the love to each other by dancing (Unfortunately, I still haven't had a video or any photos from our performance, but if I get it, I will certainly update this post). The second one was about a real life of tutors at the KSS. On the photo below you can see the final moment of this mini-scene. Ah look at people around me and my colleagues - they are all happy! And we are happy,too!

Topics for Blog #4

1)If you have an opportunity to meet with a famous historical person, who would it be? What would you like to talk or ask him about?   (Note: it can be a person which has already died or your contemporary)

2)What is your favourite holiday (New Year/ Christmas/ Birthday/ other)? Why do you like it more than other holidays? Tell interesting stories which associate you with this holiday if you have it.

3)Tell about your best friend. How long do you know him/her? Why do you consider him/her a best friend? Do you have any memorable events or incidents with him/her? 

#3.The hazards of smoking

To begin with I would like to say that approximately one year ago I disliked smoking girls. I was always annoyed when met smoking girl, especially when her friend didn't smoke, but she did. It is hard to explain, but it seemed to me that women who were smoking every day couldn't be good wives and couldn't bear healthy children. At the same time, I was indifferent to smoking boys and thought for them it is normal to smoke.
However, during the last year and, especially, during the first semester at NES my views have changed. Now I more tolerant to smoking girls and don't be annoyed while they smoking. I think it is their choice and I should respect it. Nevertheless, despite of my tolerance to smoking people I'm absolutely convinced that smoking has more disadvantages than advantages.Firstly, I think that smoking is deterioration of people's health. Moreover, while smoking they also indirectly harm the health of people who surround them. Apart from these facts, children can inherit many diseases and depending on smoking from their mothers or fathers.Secondly, smoking is a waste of money. If I'm not making a mistake, an average cost of pack of cigarettes in Russia is 50-60 Rubles. Imagine that smoking people buy one pack every day. It costs them 30*50=1500 Ruble at a mouth (at average, of course). Decide by yourself how many useful things you can buy for this sum, especially things that are opposed to smoking (for example, tickets to a gym and others). Thirdly, smoking people often become dependent on it and, as a result, they lost their will to resist smoking. When you can't reject from smoking, you become helpless in others bad habits. Because of this, trying to make every day duties becomes hard for smoking people. They often pay attention for unnecessary activity and become lazy (I remember that it is only my opinion, which is based on my own observations). Some people sometimes said to me that smoking helps them relax, don't be nervous, and helps to think about their problems clearly. Of course, it can be seemed like respectful reason, but in my humble opinion this way people only try to justify themselves, not more. For me, when I want to " relax, don't be nervous, and think my problems  clearly", I try to do sport such as running, exercising on the horizontal bar, push-ups, or simply lying on the bad and relax. These methods really help me those moments. Moreover, there is no doubt that doing some easy sport exercises is more useful for a health than smoking even one cigarette.In summary, I'd like to say that even though I'm tolerant to smoking people, I'm sure that smoking has more hazards than useful effects. The hazards are numerous diseases and risk for children's health, wasting much money, and the loss of will.  

#2. What do I like more: poetry or prose? Why?

To begin this topic, I'd like to say that all kinds of literature have always played a big role in my life. Since I was young, it was hard to imagine me without book in my hand. I liked to read them in all places I was. However, during my childhood I have never thought about what I like more: poetry or prose. I would say that I liked to read all what was interesting to me.
During the school years until 11th grade I preferred reading only prose, not poetry because our teacher required us to learn poems by heart, which was very difficult for me and I tried to avoid it. However, I tried to be a diligent student at the same time, so I couldn't say "I'd prefer not to learn it by heart", as Bartleby, the Scrivener often said to his chief :). Nevertheless, I didn't like read poetry because it associated me that I "had to" do it, not "wanted" to do.
However, at the 11th grade my preferences have changed rapidly. Because of too long preparations to economic competition, I became exhausted. It was a kind of apathy. I didn't like learn other school subjects except Economic, but later I was tired from Economics, too. At the same time I hadn't much time to read complicated books because of the same reasons. I realized that I ought to pay attention to other activities so that to relax, but I didn't know what to do. It was a big problem for me.
However, one day my friend Maria adviced me to read a poem "There aren't uninteresting people in the world" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. I was impressed. Besides the fact that it was the poem with deep sense, I realized that I was distracted from my daily routine through reading this poem. Moreover, I decided to learn it by heart...For some people it could be nonsense, but my productivity of learning Economics and other subjects increased harshly. I continued read poems more and learn by heart those which I very liked. It was like an interesting experiment on my own and I couldn't stop. I even has a specific goal: learn 1 poem every day. It was amazing. Despite the fact that this way I distracted from my daily routine, my memory skills became better every day. As a result, during about 90 days I learned by heart approximately 60 poems by different poets. Basically, it were poems by Eduard Asadov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Michael Lermontov, Vladimir Vysotsky, and, of course, Vladimir Mayakovsky. After that, I began to read it by heart to my Literature teacher. She was really glad about it. So I did, because after long time I began doing it with real pleasure. Then I read poetry on different events such as school-leaving party and "The Evening" club in the Krasnoyarsk Summer School. It is worth saying that I was happy those moments. I realized that each person can find different kinds of activity, which would distract him or her from daily routine.
As you can see, it was a specific answer to question "What I like more: poetry or prose?", but when I read this theme of blog, I right away thought about this passage of my life.
Unfortunately, now I don't have much time to learn poems by heart, but I continue reading them so that to distract from many homework assignments. As for prose, it is worth saying that I try to read it, too. Moreover, now I have an English class that is called "Introduction to Literature", so I'll have a great opportunity to read prose in English, too. It is very interesting and I like our reading assignments. In this way, if you ask me now a question about what I prefer more: poetry or prose, I'd say that I like them equally. However, it is worth saying that my preferences tend to be change in some specific moments of my life.

P.S. Irina, thank you for the great blog topic suggestion!