среда, 28 июля 2010 г.

I will have 3 English articles and 2 foreign language articles finished by Thursday, July 29.

I will send PJ my position and project outline for approval by July 31.

I'll have the pictures and music gathered by Aug. 1st.

I'll have a friend critique your project by Aug. 2nd.

I'll wrap up my presentation with iMovie by Aug. 4th

вторник, 27 июля 2010 г.

Hi, PJ,

Here is my plan on working on final presentation.

I will have al three sources by Saturday 31st.
By Monday 2nd I will have an outline which PJ supports.
By Thursday 4th I will find all pictures and music I need to use in presentation.
By Monday 9th I will have the presentation done in Imovie.

вторник, 20 июля 2010 г.

Hi,

I know I have problems with pronunciation. My accent is very strong and it's typical Russian one. My sounds are very "hard" pronounced and there are a lot of typical Russian mistakes in my speech. I think, there are problems with pronouncing "w", "t", "th" and "h".

So, I found for example such mistakes in "wanted" and "was" words wich I spell as "v" sound.
I reduce some sounds and for example in the word "coast" I say [kost] instead of [kohst].
"Grand Canoyon" is a huge problem with prounanciation in both words. Instead of ['kænjən] I say something oppositional, emphasising the second word's part and it's "a:" in the first part instead of "æ". And I say "a:" as well in "Grand", but it should be the same "æ" instead.
As for "t" is just different. In English it should be exhalation while pronouncing, but I say very hard "t".

вторник, 13 июля 2010 г.

Food and culture

There are very different cultures of cooking and eating habits in our class. So sometimes it's even hard to say what American food remindes you the home one.

For example, Annie likes spicy food and she hardly can find here, in the US, something similar to her food habbits. She thinks that American Chinese restaurants use too much sugur, so it makes food completely different from what she is used to eat. She has found once the sauce which was the same as in her home, but of cause it was made in China.

At the same time for Ximena it's easy to find something reminding about Chile. Just get vegetables and voila, you can cook something Chilian. Her favorite food is charquican which is possible to cook with meet or without.

As for cultrual ties both girls are agree that food can represent people. And Annie explains it very interesting. She says that people in her native town are very emotional, so she thinks that love to spicy food and such quality are related.

The knowledge about food which can come from the media or books is very important. That's how we can become more conscious consumers of food. It also can help to understand which food is more healthy for people in particular area. I believe that food which comes from the region you live in can be more useful for you than other.

понедельник, 12 июля 2010 г.

Food in Russia

It's hard to find something similar to the "Food. Inc" movie, which would tell about same problems in Russia. At the same time I believe that globalization influences to the processes of making food in Russia, even by importing food from other countries. And Russia imports a lot.

As a resurch company ID-Marketing mentions in its annual food industry survey, the import of different kind of foods in Russia is permanently growing. For example, import of meat grown in 2008 comparing to 2007 by 14.8%, of fish - by 1.2%. Import of vegetable oil grew also, and the number of it increased by 17.3% comparing to 2008. As for the coffee generally the import growed by 16% in recent years. There is completely different situation with the import of gramineae. For example, the import decreased by 61% in 2007, and by 41% in 2008.
The last crisis has changed a lot in food industry. During the first quarter of 2009 the import decreased by 33.2% in meat market, by 3.7% in chicken market, by 31% in vegetable oil.

Though the import is decreasing, I don't think it's really influence on the technology. It's the same process of concentration or centralization in all industries. It's a well known processe which is described by growing huge companies and displacement of small ones. So, it's the same in Russia. For example, "NMZHK" is one of the biggest companies in oil and fat production.

Finally, I would say that globalization makes the world smaller and multinational corporations come to many countries, unifying the processes of building industries, habbits of people and even culture. As a result it's really hard for small companies to compete with them in advertisment, marketing and producing the cheap food. That's why one way or another producing something in Russia can remind the same process in the US.

суббота, 10 июля 2010 г.

I'm interested in media not just because I'm a journalist, but I'm a journalist who covers media. It's like a circle, where all my life in recent years has been about journalism and journalists. Most of my friends are journalists, I'm a journalist covering journalism in Russia. And it's interesting that as a main part of my job I have to deal with editors-in-chief, who are actually my ex-bosses or probably future ones. I find it quite unusual :-)

As a final project I would like to discover differences in particular areas of the US journalism. I have a lot of concerns about freedom of the speech, but it's too big topic to cover in the 5-minute presentation and to go there really deep. That's why I would prefer to concentrate just on the one of the aspects refering to the freedom of the speech.
For now I'm thinking about writing the project which would compare slander, diffamation and liable problems in the US and in Russia. It looks very interesting for me, cause law system in general is completely different in both countries, and it;s competely different in the particular area. For example, Russia has a Criminal Code where exists an article about criminal penalty for slander. Shamelessly, it could be a prison for journalists just for their articles or TV pieces!

So I could do research about this area, to look for some histiorical and recent examples and then I would write about my opinion, which I already have. I completely disagree with the idea that the person can be punished for the words he says or writes.

I will look for the articles explaining the Russian and US situations in this field by googling. I also know Media Law and Policy Institute in Russia which professionaly is interested in the field, so I could go to their web-site and to find out if they have some resurches in the same field. I will borrow the law book from PJ and also will try to be creative in pictures choice by googling it. I've not decied yet if to choose PowerPoint or I-movie. I've done presentations in PP, so probably it willbe more challenging to use the new program for me, but I will later shoudl be needed a technical advice. I think to start some resurch on the next week. Hope the presentation will be good.

пятница, 9 июля 2010 г.

I'm interested in media not just because I'm a journalist, but I'm a journalist who covers media. It's like a circle, where all my life in recent years has been about journalism and journalists. Most of my friends are journalists, I'm a journalist covering journalism in Russia. And it's interesting that as a main part of my job I have to deal with editors-in-chief, who are actually my ex-bosses or probably future ones. I find it quite unusual :-)

As a final project I would like to recover differences in particular areas of the US journalism. For now I'm thinking about writing the project which would cover legislative issues of slander and diffamation in the US and Russia. It's quite interesting for me, cause it's completely different. The law system is completely different from the US, and there is a Criminal Code in Russia which says about criminal penalty for slander. Shamelessly, it could be a prison!

So I could do research about this area, to look for some histiorical and recent examples and then I would write about my opinion, which I already have. I completely disagree with the idea that the person can be punished for the words he says or writes.

I will look for the articles explaining the Russian and US situations in this field, will try to be creative in pictures choice and hope the presentation will be good.

вторник, 6 июля 2010 г.

The last crisis was the worldwide one, so it hasn't happend just in the US. it's a very hard time for many countries, including the country where I came from. There is also bad situation with the unemployment in Russia, and let me show you some figures I've found.

According to the national bureau of statistics "Rosstat", the number of working people in the country stands at 53 percent or 75,8 millions people. There are 92,7% of them who were involved in economics in May of 2010, and 7,3% were looking for a job. State's labor registry office says, that there are two million people who are registered as unemlployed in Russia.

I believe, that the figure should be more in a reality. First of all, I don't trust official figures just because officials in Russia not work very good, and usually they try to minimize the problem. The second point is that not all Russians would go to register themself as unemployed. I'm sure, that a lot of people would better try to find job and survive instead of registering. Sometimes it's a last thing people do. I'm sure, thet lot of people would feel embarassing to register themself in such statistics.

Another figure demonstrate the level of crisis as well. Officials say that in May of 2010 the number of people who had been dismissed was higher than the number of people who has been hired, and the discrepancy equals to 39,5 thousand people. At the same time it's a little bit less comparing to the April figures.

Finally I would say, that in spite of that taff information there it could be the reason for some optimism. The unemployment is less than in 2009 (it was 8,5% last year), and the difference between numbers of dismissed people and hired ones less as well. Compare with 43 500 people, such a number was fixed during first four months of the 2010.