Naturally, the more basic needs are met, the more fulfilled and happy people feel. However, too much focus on having fun and meeting basic needs may become harmful to the development of character and society. It may also prevent people from focusing on long-term goals and postponing pleasure to achieve more important goals.


RESTRAINT indicates that society suppresses gratification of needs and regulates it through social norms.

Liu Funing

2)If Russians plan to go out with their friends they would literally say “We with friends” instead of “I and my friends”, if they talk about brothers and sisters it may well be cousins ,this is determined by the high level of friendliness and family values in Russia, I believe that this is the most important quality of our country and the reason for victories in wars,all Russians are like the one big family, while in the USA there is no such family values as Russians despite the fact that many different religions and nationalities live in Russia.

3)Russian people are more modest, they do not speak openly about their successes, while Americans believe that there is always one winner and roughly speaking, they like to brag about their successes, but still Russian scientists and artists have made much more discoveries than American ones, Russians are modest.  For example, Wassily Kandinsky was a brilliant Russian artist, but the French and the world believe that he was French, although he simply moved to France as an adult, the Russians did not argue with the opinion of the world, because they are modest.

4)Russians prefer to have context and background information. As long as Russians interact with people considered to be strangers they appear very formal and distant while Americans tend to be more tolerant of ideas or opinions from anyone and allow the freedom of expression.

5)5)Russia is definitely a country with a pragmatic mindset. In societies with a pragmatic orientation, people believe that truth depends very much on situation, context and time. They show an ability to adapt traditions easily to changed conditions, a strong propensity to save and invest. thriftiness and perseverance in achieving results while Americans are prone to analysis new information to check whether it is true. Thus, the culture doesn’t make most Americans pragmatic, but this should not be confused with the fact that Americans are very practical,many Americans have very strong ideas about what is “good” and “evil”, this may concern issues such as abortion or use of drugs.

Another week has passed and it’s time to post smth here. Today I want to share with you a life-changing moment in my life.

For the past few months all you have been talking and hearing everywhere about the war in Ukraine. Peace that we hold so dear has been damaged in one second. That influenced on our lives in a huge way. After the beginning of the operation I felt fervour and unease. Shortly afterwards I had an epiphany moment and abandoned my faith in Russia. I realised that I want to move abroad as soon as possible. So I came to crossroads and started to peak out of searching for different ways to do that and I found about the IB program. I discussed that with my parents and we came to the conclusion that IB seems to be the perfect option so I started preparing for exams.

I also was bemused about choosing country in which I want to move to. I understood that people in the USA has to different cultural values from mine and it would be hard to reconcile with that. Moreover, the USA is too far from Russia. To move to Europe I would have to learn another language which is to challenging for me. Finally, I came to consider England and understood that it has a lot of advantages. Firstly, I now English well enough not to have problems with living, studying and communicating in it. Secondly, I have close friends who live there and would be able to help me if needs arises. Thirdly, I have been in England a few years before and I felt in love with their lifestyle. And last but not least, there are a lot of great universities such as Cambridge, Oxford or LSE. So, my family and I decided that studying in England is the best opportunity in current situation.

After successfully passing my exams for Moscow Economic School my new life began. The new school, new community, new environment, new friends and teachers and, of course, new challenges. Studying on IB program proved to be quite difficult and time-consuming but at the same time fascinating.

Let me tell you about features in studying on IB. It has a completely different approach to learning. In each subject you have to not only memorise, but also to think and make up something. Discussing and looking at problems from different perspectives and points of view definitely broadens horizons. For example, we discussed religion on English lessons for more than a month. On the first glance, this theme seems to be boring and useless. What is striking is that it proved to be so impressive! I leant a lot about spirituality and beliefs and understood that it is normal to discuss this theme with people.

Moreover, I met here a lot of interesting and intelligent peers with their own different interests and hobbies and it’s so cool to discuss all of that in breaks.

To sum up, war in Ukraine unavoidably affected all of us a lot in a sad way. Nevertheless, everything has its pluses and I have a positive experience of studying on IB due to this situation.

Don’t forget to like, comment and come back. Next time you’ll find smth interesting again!

Until next time! - Arina

Hope that everyone is doing well in these uncertain times that we are living in. 

Recently, my friends and I wished to gain more experience and knowledge, as all of us are going to a university and be spread up around the whole world. Therefore, we decided to sign up for a camping weekend that our school organised. 

            The weekend was full of different activities which taught me many lessons, that I still use them until know in my daily life. At the start of our trip, we had to walk up a mountain for around 5 hours straight, afterwards we had to set up a tent, that was the first time I ever did such a thing. For the night, we had to sleep outside in quite a cold temperature, even though we had our sleeping bags, and we were dressed is huge coats and sweaters, we were still cold. To get a little warmer, we had to set up a fire. Only one of my friends knew and could set up a fire, so we all had to work in a team. The night was quite taught, as one of the girls was struggling with insomnia (when someone finds it hard to fall asleep), so we decided to help her. All of us shared different funny stories, that could help us all to relax and all of us eventually fell asleep. The next day, we had to prepare a breakfast, although we faced a huge problem of not having enough food supplies. Then we had to all share all our food between everyone, to make sure, that everyone had some food and not hungry for the day. 

            This experience taught us many skills and we gained a lot of knowledge from our trip. Throughout the weekend, we gained skills of leadership (when we followed our friend in building a tent), we gained skills of teamwork (when sharing our food between each other), and many more. I would never forget this weekend in my life. 

 

This time I want to share with you with some my life-changing experiences that gave me a new way of looking at the world. 

Everyone here knows that I’ve moved to Moscow not a long time ago and I want to go to this topic much deeper than just say that this has changed my life. This changes have given me new points of view on different things. I have started to think much deeper on some topics that I have never thought about before. I have met new people who I started to trust after some period of time. 

This time I will write some examples of the most interesting and important cases that gave me a new path to go through 

1.      New school

My first Moscow experience was my transition to a new, second school. I met with new people. At the beginning I was rather nervous and was too shy to start communicating with others. One girl decided to get acquainted with me, she showed me the whole school and explained how everything worked there. After several months I got used to this change and started to be more open in keeping in touch with my new classmates. When I realized that they understand me, I started to be more confident. This was a huge change in my personality as I have always been an extremely shy girl who didn’t like to take part in school life.

2.      Turkey journey 

That was another experience which is connected with my confidence. When me and my parents came to our hotel, first of all I found a teenagers’ club there. As usual I was rather shy at the beginning and was afraid that everything could go in a wrong way, so I wouldn’t get along with them. But I was mistaken, every day I spent almost the whole day with them, we went swimming, played games and took part in some competition battles. With some of them I could walk almost the whole night. I was full of the joys of spring because I have never spent so much time with a group of teenagers, it could be maximum 3 people that was my close friends. When I returned to Russia, I understood that I was not afraid of my peers anymore. 

Frankly, I don’t have a lot of examples but these are the most visible ones that left a huge mark on my identity that I show to everyone these days. It was and it still is a difficult way to my future personality. 

To sum up my today’s blog I want to write that I’m glad that I can go ahead with all the difficulties and changes in my life. When I received more and more life practices, my personality changed in a more beautiful way. 

Thank you so much for reading, don’t forget to like and stay your comment.

See you later! – Vika 

How are you all doing today? I hope everything is great.

Today I wanted to discuss a very important topic. It is spirituality, life after death and epiphany! 

Have you ever thought about life after death?

That is the question that changed my whole life. Let me tell you my story.

 Once I was driving to the countryside with my brother and thinking about God. «Does he or she exist? Will I have to pay for my sins? Who invented the world?». Then I heard a loud sound: Nika, lay down! 

We got in the car accident. My whole life flashed before my eyes. I heard «BAM!» and the last thing that I saw was the forest.

My eyes closed and I started to hear some voices. It was the dialog:

- She has so many sins.. During her life she didn’t convert to any religion, she didn’t pray and she felt the uncomfortable chair during rituals and meditation.
- Well, don’t forget that she has an atheist father and agnostic father.
- Of course, but she left the nest 5 years ago! She could find God during this time.
- I still stand for giving her another chance.
- Okay, this time I will agree with you.

I felt unavoidable horror. Am I dead? It was a stretch too far for me. It seemed that I was drowning in the depths. 
- Nika, wake up. It’s okay.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the bed in a hospital. I was alive. 

That was an epiphany moment. This story became a crucial factor of my religiosity. After some time I stopped arguing against religion, rediscovered faith and converted to Buddhism. I had no doubts at all and I did not come to crossroads. This car accident taught me that there is something above the humanity. My philosophy and ideologies had changed completely. It has been the most inconceivable and unimaginable situation that I have ever experienced in my life.

Evaluating this experience and talking about its advantages, I can say, that it effected me so much. I started having a capacity to reach out beyond oneself. Now I discover and make meaning of experience through broadened perspectives and behaviour. Much to my surprise and pleasure, all spheres of my life got better! 

There are no other sides of this fascinating experience. I gained a lot of knowledge through this car accident and I am grateful to God for the opportunity to "touch" him so closely.

So, that’s my exciting story! Guys, if some of you have such experience, share it with me! I would be really happy to discuss your situations.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Lots of love,
 Nika