Author: d.piddubnyi

5081190220267843
03/24/16

Literacy Narrative

My name is Denys Piddubnyi. I am Ukrainian. I was born is a small city Sumy on the left band of the river Symka. My cities situates about fifty miles from Russian border, which is why we are having a huge impact of Russian language and culture to my education and history of my family. As a lot of us know URRS was formally enacted on December 26’s, 1991 and all fifing republic got independents. Ukraine was one of them.

I was born in 1989 and officially I was a USSR citizen for three years and after it I become an Ukrainian. I don’t remember a lot from that time that’s why I can’t tell you much about “how was it?” Well when I asked my parents and friends of the family all what they were telling me is that: “It was a nice time with slight difficulties in getting products from behind the “Iron wall”. But over all their life were stable and full of possibilities even without strong connections with government or rich parents behind shoulder. Prices were low, education was free and if you work hard and ambitious, you will do well in life.” – from the memories of a good friend of my family, Roman.

My mother Ella was born in Murmansk. It is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia (nowadays), located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, an inlet of the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, close to the Russia’s borders with Norway and Finland. She got an education there and came to Sumy to work at the textile factory right after her graduation from college. She is a professional seamstress. She met my father Alexander in Sumy and in a couple of years they got married.

My father Alexander was born in small city close to Sumy. At the age of 17 he got enforced into the USSR army and been deployed to Transnistria is a partially recognized state located mostly on a strip of land between the River Dniester and the eastern Moldovan border with Ukraine. Since its declaration of independence in 1990. This state’s claims to territory east of the River Dniester and to the city of Bender and the localities surrounding it on the west bank are largely unrecognized. Transnistria lies in the historical region of Bessarabia. By that time USSR. After serving two years there he came back to Sumy and found a job as a cab driver.

As you can see from my background my parents never been reach and never get a university degree or high education, I can say for them it was a priority in their life’s, that I can be the first person in our family with diploma from university. My education started in 1996 when I went to the first class of the public school. Educational system in my country in 1996 was a very similar to education in USSR, “old school” teachers with their own views on education; I remember they invested more time in how we are holding our pens instead of what we are writing. I remember my first teacher asked my mother to school several times because I held my pen in the left hand instead of the right one and she suggested her to re-train me to write with my right hand. But it is just one memory from my young years. Over all education was interesting and difficult as I understand now, because we learner many subjects and material people learning in college here. I got good marks till about middle school and after it my education got a little down because I invested more time into my friends and joy. I graduated from school in 2006 with a couple of C’s but over all I get a good marks.

When I got enrolled into Sumy State University I was 16 years old. I was far away from education and from thoughts about who I want to be in my future life I believe that not many people able to tell who they want to be in future and how they want to live their lives at this age. I got my first computer in 2004 and probably I can mark this as the point in my life which helped me to choose my future degree. I choose Compute Information Sciences as my major and programming as my minor. In my country computer sciences was developed with a huge gap compare to the rest of the world so for me choosing this major was a huge possibility for future carrier. We were the first group of student who were accepted to this course and it was the first time in history when university created this major. Professors were not sure what to give us and because of that we got a lot of math, programming, statistic and design of the mechanisms. All this crazy classes were mixed with pre-required classes such as history, Literature and Ukrainian language. To say that it was a little difficult is not to say anything. We got more than thirty hours of programming together with design and calculations of margin of safety. A couple of times I thought about dropping of the university, but my perseverance and friends around me in class pushed me thru it. I really liked my class and our support of each other was incredible.

I want to make a step back and tell you a little about my English language in my own country. I started to learn English in kindergarten. I believe it was the only one place where four years kids knew how to say basic, but words, in other language. My parent saw that I like English and they found a good school for me where I can improve and get a good knowledge of English for my future. Unfortunately English in university was not a priority and four years without practicing it left a big mark on it.

To understand Russians you need to understand their relationship to education in Russian community. Education for Russians here is like a symbol of success in community, you can compare it to the big, house or an expansive car. If you look at the numbers between immigrants the average of 67% finished high school, compare to 80.3% of Russian immigrants. 61% of the Russian people in United States have a Bachelor Degree or above, 19% have an equivalent of the US Associated Degree and 17 % finished college in US. Russians families choose the college or university very carefully. Usually a specific part of the whole budget goes to the educational needs of the family in future. Parents do everything what they can to put kids onto the right way in middle and high school so the kids are getting high scores in school for their own future.

03/22/16

My adopted language

As we all know English language has a long and interesting history. Amy Tan’s story tells us about English or American language? Do we all know that English language and American a similar but still different? On my opinion the argument of the writer is that there is no rules in language we can implement and use with every conversation we have. It’s not a math or science where we can you the same rule for every equation. And different rule for another one. The title “Mother Tongue” is just trying to give us an idea from the first words of the story, that this story would be not about what words you’re using, it is going about what you mean when you’re telling this words and what people understand when they hear it. From the history of the United States of America we all came from different parts of the world where we used, maybe similar, maybe different language in our daily life, but when we came here we get a necessity to communicate and cooperate. So the audience is the people who came to this country and adopt the English as the second language, basically all of us. This story is about the people who is using English as the first language, it tells them not to judge people for whom English is native, but also for ESL people who shouldn’t be afraid, and get closed from outside world, but to speak and succeed in learning English and become part of society. It is important for her because of two reasons, first she came from the family of immigrants where English wasn’t the first language, she learned it and become a writer and the second, part of her Chinese roots, in her mom, will always stays inside of her and she will never forget where she came from.

I came from Ukraine and my native language is Russian. I have a lot of friends from countries based after USSR separation and when we meet we all speak Russian. Over the years I spend in US I got friends for whom English is the main language and I often ask them to tell me the mistakes I make during my conversations with them. With their help I significantly improved it and continue improvement, but as Amy Tan, I will never give up my first language and will always remember the road I came from.

03/12/16

Acts of Revision A GUIDE FOR WRITERS

Interesting work. Some good ideas. And a couple of authors names I heard in past. A lot of new technics pop up in this article. For myself I noticed famous and legendary name, and can’t disagree with the statement from Agatha Christie, who is expressing the problem more elegantly: “If you like to write for yourself only, that is a different matter—you can make it any length, and write it in any way you wish; but then you will probably have to be content with the pleasure alone of having written it.”

I want to point a thesis (maybe I can see it as a thesis) – “revise alone, revise with others.” It is so strong. I never thought how useful the opinion of other people is. Only when I got a comments from my writing group I was able to modify, change my RA project, I was able to see me weak point and where I need to pay more attention.

I don’t like to revise my paper. I agree that is very useful and it makes your paper better. I am positive about it. This pages gave me an understanding and knowledge of the idea that nobody likes to do it. It is just cruel to do it. It will be hard and difficult at the beginning, but over time you will fill much confident and experienced in it.

I want to finish my response with words from the book:” “Yes, this works. It’s worth it.”

03/2/16

To be a reader

I think it is a deep and helpful article. It gives us a straight forward format and points to pay attention when we are comment someone’s paper. I found this article useful and will try to use all the suggestions and tools author gave us. From previous article “Shitty First Draft” and from my papers to, I know how hard the writing is, and how much power and courage it takes from the writer. From this article, I understood the other side of the coin, how hard is to be the reader, and give comments to someone’s work without been perceived offensive, be neutral to someone’s work. It takes a lot of time not to be a critic or a teacher when you are reading someone work. This article will help me a lot in my future work when someone will ask me my personal opinion and suggestions about not only class work writing projects, but also any kind of paper (speech, business analyses, ect.)
I really enjoyed reading the essay of the kid; Richard Straub was very helpfully when he shows the technics on the specific example of someone’s work.

Usually I never give bad comments to someone’s work. If I am reading someone’s work and I feel like I disagree with someone or some ideas I just keep it for myself, and trying to find an ideas and words I like to give a positive feedback and not to offend the writer. After this article I will pay more attention to some aspects that I was disagree or not sure what author was trying to say, not to offend but to help with his work. Obviously it will be a long way with mistakes and corrections, but it is how it is works. We are learning to be not just the good writers, but the good readers as well.

02/29/16

Inspiring words

Article had interesting idea and analyses. I like the idea that article is connecting the writer and the reader. I feel much better now, knowing that I am not the only one who is pushing himself to sit down and start writing. My first draft is almost always shitty. Yes, I do have an idea in my head, but NO, I don’t have a tool to deliver that idea to the reader from the beginning or to say more correctly from the first draft. All my life I wasn’t good in writing and my skills are far from perfection. But I can see improvement in my writing skills from beginning of the class till today. I marked that there are no limits in drafts and there is no ceiling in attends in writing comparing to other sciences. I can see a slight connection between sport and writing. In sport you can show a result from the first attend and then work hard invest time and power into and next time show much better (there is always a possibility to show worst) results in second attend or in the third. The difference will be only at the competitions where everybody have three attends. Author gives us a good advice that the drafts are only for you and the final draft is for everybody. No one will never know that you wrote down endless amount of drafts. Everybody will discuss and criticize your final draft you decided to show to public. In chapter number two, Anne telling us about “just a few” writers can start their first and last draft without re-writing it and I would love to read them one day to feel the power and limits of human abilities. It is very hard to write the only one draft and be perfect in it. Over all very interesting and educational article. Article inspired me that I am not the only one who’s afraid to write.

02/22/16

It’s time to make a step

The time to take a step forward is now, and James Baldwin’s, “The Fire Next Time- My Dungeon Shook,” recognizes this truth. During its publication in 1962, the timing could not have been more perfect because the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak and the United States of America was at racial unrest. We know Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a national protest to highlight the inequalities against African Americans and this relates to Baldwin’s work as a written protest to those who were losing hope in themselves and White America that had a lack of opportunity for Blacks.

The letter written by Baldwin was addressed to his nephew as a stylistic choice, but was meant to raise the consciousness of the young Blacks, especially men, to see beyond the societal ills of their time and work towards a prospective future for all Americans. In the passage, what Baldwin said, “Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear,” was meant as a mean to elevate African Americans way of thinking from hate to love without being blinded by naivete.

The choice to make this piece a letter is most important because it signifies solidarity and strength in a personable way.  Young African Americans can relate to accepting advise from an older relative, while the older African Americans could see it as an affirmation to the truth and ideal way to encourage the younger generation to seek strength in unity amongst all Americans than segregation from whites.

02/18/16

Let’s make a step to the future

It’s time to make a step. From the first sentences of this letter when the author is saying that it took him five times to write it, you can feel that it’s not going to be easy to read the letter. Right then I felt the pain, life experiences, his way of life. It took me three times to read it, before I was able to try and write a review and personal opinion about it.
Race and color of the skin are still most demanded topics in peoples’ life. You hear stories of a white police officer killed a black kid on the street, black man robbed the deli and shot the indian cashier and so on. But how many years have gone by since Afro-Americans received equal rights in US? Not long ago, we were talking about human civilization, I can see that the author knows the history of his people and I think he was one of those who fought for freedom, and now he’s trying to explain to his nephew that the fight is over and the best thing he can do is to forgive the rebels which are still out there and who’s thinking that the fight is not done yet. I can be wrong, but I feel like the author is trying to show that some white people are now more slaves of their prejudices then the black people back in the days. That it took so many years to open the eyes of humanity, but still there are some with closed ones.. He’s asking to forgive them because they are stuck in their mind and there is no way for them to be free from their own prison they are in. In the last part of his letter he gives advice not only to his relative, but to mankind, he says that we need to get rid of the chains, shook our dungeon to be able to make a next step in our bright future, without it we are still going to be in the dark ages.

02/11/16

Backpacks vs. Briefcases

Finish reading this essay or article I can say that I learned something new. Laura wrote down an easy, open and free from hard terminology article. It was a real pleasure to read it. It should definitely helps me in my future when I will try to persuade somebody. From my point of view the most important sentence or I might say the main idea of this article is art of persuasion, models and types. From what I read II want to mention few main (from my point of view) notes I made while I was reading it. I learned three key step in any rhetoric question by Lloyd Bitzer – exigence, audience, constraints. Orator has to prepare each of them well before appearance to receive a positive response from public. I understand what is “rhetorical triangle” – writer, reader and purpose and how PR, media, public people are using it in real life. Now I know that one of the first people who started and implement this science was Aristotle with his – “artistic appeals”, obviously now it’s much wider. I really liked a paragraph about humor as a tool for development of the ideas and thoughts to the ethos. Overall, it’s very interesting and educational article, hope the knowledges from it will help me in my future work.

02/11/16

What Is Rhetoric

From this article I found out that Rhetoric has a whole history behind itself. In the beginning this word had only a strict meaning – art of the orator, public speaking. Later on via couple of centuries this word got a totally different definition and explanation, it became wider. Today rhetoric work starts event before the speech. For the orator very important to understand before the public speech what kind of group with what material status, ethnicity or culture you’re trying to persuade. Nowadays “Rhetoric” includes three main section such as: Claim, Support and Warrant. If the orator know how to use those three section he will be able to persuade any kind of people.

02/9/16

Everybody’s a Critic. And That’s How It Should Be

Critic – is the first person who’s trying, seeing something before all others. His mind should be free of emotions, open-minded and ready to write from his own point, clear and honest. But how the opinion of the one can be the general opinion about something for others? Just a simple example, I’m not a big fan of coconuts, so what, everybody should feel the same about coconuts? Hell no, they can enjoy this beautiful tropical fruit. What I understood from this article is that we all our own critics, and it is only our final decision about something. I really liked when A. O. Scott mention Rotten Tomatoes, because I like to watch movies and very often my personal opinion is completely different from the reports of “Critics” and “Users”. Of course I am taking some time and looking at the reviews of people if I’m planning to get the table in the restaurant or order a food online, but I trust more regular people then critic’s reviews only because restaurants are aware that “these” guy can destroy their place just with one bad article about the food or service, and they do anything to make him feel special.

I really liked when author encourage us to be our own critics when he was saying:

“Enough of that! It’s the mission of art to free our minds, and the task of criticism to figure out what to do with that freedom. That everyone is a critic means that we are each capable of thinking against our own prejudices, of balancing skepticism with open-mindedness, of sharpening our dulled and glutted senses and battling the intellectual inertia that surrounds us. We need to put our remarkable minds to use and to pay our own experience the honor of taking it seriously.”

He is trying to open our eyes and start living our own life without the help of anybody from outside. It is very deep, because, nowadays people are hiring other people to help them figure out what to buy and what to wear (professional shopper), what to say, how to act, where to go and so on. People loosing they own opinion in many aspects of their own life. Another thing that still blows my mind is that people are spending all their money in an attempt to keep up with fashion trends. They do not care how comfortable or useful the cloth they wear is, they just want to be up to date no matter if tomorrow is going to be a completely new attire.

I really like this article and my personal opinion, I respect the people who have their own opinion about thing in their life’s but at the same time do not put it on top of others, and feel bad about those who lost themselves in the mob of voices.

02/8/16

The Egg and the Sperm

Article is created by a woman who’s trying to show to the public equality of sperm and egg. Author of this book wasn’t very concern about the people how’s not very familiar with biological definitions and used a lot of them. While I was reading I make a notes where I was able to find metaphors and how accurate author using them. “It is remarkable how “femininely” the egg behaves and how “masculinely” the sperm.” – We can see that author is trying to show from the science prospective of past how people thought that Sperm is much more important. Old world denied all attempts of acceptations. Time passing by and the level of science is growing and we can see a slight step to equity between those two. “Differences between egg and sperm are emphasized, and the parallels between cultural stereotypes of male and female behavior and the character of egg and sperm all point to this conclusion.” – At this period of time some people already agree that the old view may be old and unprofessional. Even thou a lot of scientists such as Like Schatten and Johns Hopkins were trying to show to the people that sperm and egg are equal the final step when some people accept the equality between happened not long time ago in 1987. After this year and officially proved and recorder that egg is doing same amount of work in sex, humanity became more open minded and ready to for a new opinion. I didn’t enjoyed reading of this book and I think that it is many definitions in it and the person without basic biology knowledge’s will be lost, but overall it was interesting to read how author is showing us a fight for the equal rights of the sperm and the egg.

02/8/16

CRUZ-IFIED – By Denys Piddubnyi

Since early 2015 when Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States of America, he has been mocked and highlighted in the media as a financial mogul who trying to spread propaganda for the Trump named-brand. His name became famous all over the world, and infamously so, after his own idiotic and narrow-minded views on important topics. However, he developed a following, disciples. The title of this article, “CRUZ-IFIED”, published in the New York Post on February 2, 2016 compared Trump’s defeat in Des Moines, Iowa to Jesus’s crucifixion due to the overwhelming, and utterly surprising, defeat in the caucuses. Jesus was once a popular man among the people, had disciples; he restored faith and healed broken-hearted and rallies all over the land of Jerusalem to preach the message of God. He was later challenged by The King of the Roman Empire and sentenced to a public crucifix. Much like Mr. Trump who campaigned and rallies the people who needed change. Trump lost a major caucus to Ted Cruz; henceforth, being “CRUZ-IFIED”.

http://www.businessinsider.com/daily-news-ny-post-donald-trump-iowa-2016-2

 

02/3/16

Metaphors We Live By

The first three chapters of this book opens up the theory of conceptual definition of metaphors, according to which the metaphors are not simply a tool of speech decoration, is a process of interaction between the two structured houses of speech – sender and the receiver.

This book shows up a whole new meaning of use metaphors in our daily life. This book is very easy to read and there are no long and difficult definitions, authors tried to write down this book as easy as possible so every single person was able to understand it. First three chapters give us a visible example of metaphors we use in our everyday life such as: ‘Argument is war’ and ‘Time is money’. I want to look a little closer on the metaphor – time is money. I was born in country where people are getting paid every months at the end of the month and never count hours or even minutes spent at work because usually they receiving the same amount of money every month. When I came to United States and found my first job I was surprised when I got paid for every minute I spent at work. So, basically, the meaning of the metaphor “Time is money’ in US have a straight connection and it is no longer a metaphor for a lot of people here. Personally I never thought about it from this perspective.

Another good example from the authors is when they were able to show to the reader how conduit metaphor can connect only specific people from mass on the example of ‘Please sit in the apple-juice seat’, for most of the people this sentences will make no sense, but for the right person this words be like the order for action, he exactly knows what he needs to do. I found this chapters interesting and new for myself.

02/2/16

Denys Piddubnyi

Hello!

My name is Denys Piddubnyi. I was born in Ukraine and came to the US six years ago. I live in Brooklyn in safe and nice area – Bensonhurst. It’s a little far from the city but because of it my apartment is big and affordable. I live with to friends and we like to hang out together when we free.

I work full time as an event manager in event planning company. I work with it for 3 years and I really like it because every day, every event I do is not the same one I did yesterday. We have a big team and over all our company is about 500 people. I’m doing my best to manage my schedule between work and school but sometimes it is hard.

This is my 2 semester in Baruch and I enjoying my time here. My major is Finance and I hope to get it as sooner as possible.

When I have a free time (almost never) I like to play airsoft. Airsoft is like a paintball but the difference is the balls in airsoft are plastic and hits harder.

Thank you for this class professor and looking forward to have a great spring semester.

images

I choose this picture because I like animal and I have a cat at my home. Cat’s are super independent animals they don’t need you until they time you MUST feed them. Sometimes my cat shows me who’s in charge in the house and very often – it’s him!)

Denys Piddubnyi