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May 2, 2011 Hello Andrew,Somehow I decided to change my topic. I will write a little bit about the homeless in San Francisco. Despite the fact that America is a rich country with a lot of opportunities, not all of the people are able to benefit from them. The biggest surprise for me when I had just arrived in the United States was the huge number of homeless people in San Francisco, how Americans help them, and how friendly those poor people are. In downtown San Francisco, some buildings are shelters for homeless people, so it is very rare to find a street without someone begging for money or food. You may easily recognize them with their old and filthy clothes, plenty of bags they carry, or even shop carts full of their belongings. In addition, there are places where those poor people can get food, help, or advice from a social worker. Also, there are special programs for homeless people in hospitals, so they are able to get help from the top doctors. Social workers help them to get a place to live, financial aid and decent jobs. The main purpose of all these programs is to help broken people to return to a normal life. The biggest surprise for me was how friendly the majority of the homeless people are. They are always happy to talk to stranger or just to help with anything. If you don't have cash to donate, don't worry because all you will hear is "God bless you." It is amazing how the government and people of America have created society where everyone has an opportunity to live his own life and to get what he wants. I hope that one day you will be able to visit San Francisco and explore this beautiful town. Moreover, I'm confident you'll love the people who live in this colorful city. Regards, Yuriy  April 24, 2011 Hello Andrew,Today I'm going to write you about the most interesting experience I have ever had had. For more than four years I was working for a very famous, influential, and, at the same time, intelligent, broker. History knows many people who got their fortune and became famous during their lives; however, a lot of them become known only after their death. Have you ever heard an expression that "If you are chased by a tiger, you don't need to outrun the tiger, you just need to be faster, than the person next to you"? This was Walter's favorite Walter's expression. Walter Shorenstein was known as a self-made multimillionaire who made his fortune in commercial real estate. He was a committed democrat and influential politician. This is a man whom I personally knew, with whose biography I became familiar and whom, I can say this now for sure, I really respect and admire. Walter Shorenstein has a long and very interesting biography. He was born in Glen Cove, N.Y., to a middle-class family. From his young years he was working for his father and that experience he kept through all his life. During World War II, Mr. Shorenstein was stationed in North Africa, managing supplies and logistics for troops in Africa, Europe and Asia. When he was discharged in 1946, he moved to San Francisco "with a pregnant wife and a thousand bucks in my pocket". During his life he worked as an advisor to three Presidents: Jonson, Carter and Clinton. Walter Shorenstein was a large donor to the Democratic Party and became deeply involved in civic efforts. He was 95 when he died in his house in San Francisco on June 24th, 2010. Walter Shorenstein was always "the boss". He knew what was going on in political life as well as what plants the gardener should plant in his summer house in Portola Valley. He had an impressive memory, and because of this his secretaries were very often in trouble. "Boss", as they call him, always knew what article he had read a month ago, whom he had told to keep it and in which file. In addition, Mr. Shorenstein always knew what he wanted and very rarely changed his mind. It was amazing how he was able in any given situation to see the whole picture and analyze and interpret it in his own way. When I had just started working for him, I heard that the way he thought was different from all the other people. Honestly, I didn't believe in that and was sure that all these stories were just expressions of respect for a rich man. As time went by, I discovered that that all this was true and my work turned into the most thrilling experience of my entire life. Regards, Yuriy April 18, 2011 Dear Andrew,I can't say I'm very consistent in sending letters to you, but I'm trying to be. I hope that in this letter you can find information you are interested in. However, my main goal is to give you a view on so called "American life" from the inside. We have always shared similar values in life and that is why you can find a lot of information to discuss in my letters. Though my values are now influenced by my life in America, I hope that we still have a lot in common. Today I want to share with you my thoughts and facts from the media about youth sports in the United States. In America there are many professional sports leagues, including boxing, soccer, baseball, and many others. This is a huge and successful industry that generates huge amounts of revenue. At the youth level there are many organized sports that are also very popular. In fact, many children are deeply involved in team as well as in individual sports. American parents are eager to enroll their children in athletic training. In addition, there are many programs for kids at city parks or in the public schools and they are less costly. Americans believe that young people derive many skills from competitive sports, including discipline, self-confidence and self-esteem. In addition, they learn how to perform under pressure and deal with setbacks. Though benefits are high, there are some concerns about youth sports. Some psychologists are concerned that the emotional pressure is too high for kids and this could be detrimental for them. Knowing parents' expectations from them, children aren't able to play for pleasure. The emphasis is exclusively on winning and there is no fun. The expectations from children are high and winning is a top priority. Finally, for many children sport practice inevitably turns into a chore. Moreover, parents become so obsessed with their kids' achievements in sports that brawls at stadiums are not rare occurrence. Recently, the media have reported many occurrences of parents yelling and screaming during the youth sports events. Such parental attitudes prevail now and many psychologists are deeply concerned about this. They suggest that parents shouldn't be so "wrapped up in their children games" and need to "lighten up." Though you are not such a parent, I have a feeling this information should be interesting for you. Anyway, next time I would be glad to discuss what you think about this and what kind of problems are related to youth sports you have in Ukraine. Regards, Yuriy March 31, 2011 Hello Andrew,This time I'm going to tell you more about how Americans take care of nature. At City College, I've learned a lot about this and really want to share this information with you. Our teacher gave us an article about John Muir and how his life reflects the American values of individualism, materialism and control over the environment. This article shows how those values, even though Muir was American, came into conflict. He was naturalist, observer, and popular writer known throughout the United States. At the same time, he was inventor and worked at odd jobs. Throughout his life he went to the wildest, leafiest, and least known places. He was known by many famous people, and even President T. Roosevelt visited him. Despite the fact that John Muir had such a bright individual personality, he had no values of materialism or control over environment. He was a servant to the wilderness and protected it throughout his whole life. Before John Muir came to San Francisco, he had been to the wildest parts of the East coast and Mexico. He was obsessed with his love of wild nature. Consequently, he decided to explore and observe California's wild places. He was so impressed by the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite Valley that he finally decided to make his home in Yosemite. Despite the fact that he had seen many wild places during his life, John Muir was amazed by this place. He worked at manual jobs and in his free time explored the Yosemite area. During this time Muir wrote many articles named "Studies in the Sierra". His books and articles were so inspiring and full of the love of nature that many people started sharing his views and beliefs. Moreover, he founded the Sierra Club to protect Yosemite National Park and was deeply involved in the process of establishing the national parks in America. John Muir's story fascinated me. His devotion to nature, wanderlust, and ability to be nature's servant throughout his whole life made me to think a lot about this. That is why I decided to share Muir's story with you. Truly yours, Yuriy March 16, 2011 Andrew,As always, I am glad to share with you my experience and thoughts about America. It is a great country with huge potential and a very diversified population. I really want to share with you some of my thoughts and observations regarding consumerism in America. The United States is all about business. People do business, talk business, dream business, and sometimes (I'm confident in this), sleep business. Commercials are everywhere: on TV and radio, in newspapers and magazines, on buildings and cars. Each one promises you the most reliable product and the best price. Such pressure makes people believe in what offered, and they start shopping. In fact, high living standards and lots of goods are creating a society with very active consumers. This is good for the economy, and this is what America was built on. Supporters of the American consumer culture believe that people must have right to decide for themselves what is good to buy and what is not. However, some people buy more than they need and get addicted to shopping. In addition, some of them even think that in this way they can achieve status in society. People think that extensive spending and owing expensive products or a particular brand will give them the image of wealthy and prosperous citizens. Very often people with low self esteem suffer severely under such pressure from the consumer culture. Moreover, parents buy expensive clothes and cars for their children in college to support their "status" in society. American consumerism has been good for the economy and for the country as a whole. However, we can see some disadvantages too. They include overspending, debt, and financial problems. I'm going to discuss all of these with you in my next letter. Have fun and don't work too hard. Regards, Yuriy March 7, 2011 Dear Andrew,You didn't sent me an answer to my previous letter, and I'm little bit concerned about this. Anyway, I hope everything is well in your life. This letter is going to be little bit unusual, probably because I don't have anything particular in my mind. I'll try to tell you more about life in America. It's very fast; I mean, life in America is very fast. Till this time I'm not sure why I have so little time for myself. Please, keep in mind that I have a car, computer, do a lot of work online and hate shopping. In the meantime, however, I've started making notes of what I have to do and need to accomplish. I do all my scheduling through Google calendar and, can you believe that I have some events scheduled a year ahead? I have gotten used to this, but even this simple task needs plenty of time and energy. I'll try to explain you why. For example, once I was on the phone with my doctor's office and needed to schedule an appointment. I couldn't schedule it right away because the doctor was available only two times a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I had a conflict with my other appointments. So I told the nurse that I was going to call back after I figured out when I could do this. After that, I had to make a several phone calls to find a "window" for the appointment. After thirty minutes, I realized that the only time I could do this was on Friday in four weeks from the time I made a phone call. Feeling relaxed and confident, I called the doctor's office again and told them the date that was good for me. The nurse, however, said that at that time the doctor will be on vacation and I had to find time before it or after. That was a big surprise, but I had no option but to start from the beginning again. That was the method of trial and error, and finally, I was able to schedule an appointment. You probably won't believe me, but altogether it took me three hours and fifteen minutes to make it work for all of us. In addition, I bothered many people and they had to spend their time to help me fix my problem. This is a great example of why people are so busy in this country. I don't remember the name of the article I read in the SF Chronicle, but it says that according to research, productive office time is around 50-60%. Indeed, what happened to me is a great example of why the results are so low. This experience made me more organized, to look deep into every single question, and to be more detailed. Very often, lack of details makes simple things complicated. Regards, Yuriy February 25, 2011 My dear Andrew,This coming year I thought that I really must organize my life and decide where to go and what to do. In this country, one of the most important things is a degree, or you must have successful business. In addition, everything is so specialized that people usually know little besides their job. During my life I have had an opportunity to be a student in the former USSR and in the United States. A lot of things in the educational system in both countries are similar; nonetheless, some of the rules are completely different. The main differences I see are in the age allowance and scheduling process. In the former USSR, no one older than 20 was attending college. Age was one of the restrictions; meanwhile, everyone older than 25 had a job or had been enrolled in the university. It was common practice and law that people must study when they are young, and after they had obtained a profession or degree they had to go to work. In America there are no age restrictions in any college; furthermore, people of any age are encouraged to go to college, to improve their knowledge, and to get a higher degree. In any institution all over the United States, students vary in age from 15 to 50-something. This freedom of education is guaranteed by the constitution of the country. Schedules for classes in Soviet colleges was very strict. They were created each year by the Board of Education and implemented in every college throughout the country. Every year in August the schedule was announced to the students before September 1st. Even the teachers in a college were unable to change it. On the other hand, in America students are able to create their own schedules. Usually it depends on the availability, quality, and consistency. With this opportunity students are able to work part-time, to take additional classes, and to learn wisely. A variety of classes are offered by each college; however, some of them are available only for a limited number of students. In each college every student is able to get help from a counselor in order to create the most efficient and personalized schedule for classes. Despite the fact that the educational systems in the USSR and in the United States have deep roots and give good knowledge to the students, in some aspects in each country it is completely different. I can't say one is better, and it is not up to my knowledge to compare or to examine educational systems throughout the world; consequently, I just admit the fact that the age of the students, ability to create schedules and to attend libraries and labs are completely different in those two countries. February 14, 2011 Dear Andrew,Somehow I didn't hear from you for a long time, but I'm continuing to write letters to you about America. Indeed, this country is very colorful, and I have learned a lot about the values people share here. Some of them are strange for me, but most of them came from the mainstream European culture. What I have to learn and what it is really difficult to get used to is the value of change. Despite the fact that all Americans like stability in business and in life, from youth they have accepted the fact that change is inevitable. From school they have learned the fact that those who try to resist change are in danger of falling behind. In addition, those who do not accept change as a part of life are not able to live in full. Americans love change and anticipate it. As an example, I could use the new models of cell phones or cars, which Americans buy long before they are on the market. Moreover, they are eager to obtain new medications as soon as they are available and always ready to buy and taste what's new in the food market. What I really like is that, even though not all changes are good and not all new products have decent quality, Americans make the best of changes, rather than fighting them. They try to view change as an opportunity for growth, to look at it as a positive rather than a negative phenomenon. It's true that in America you never know what is going to happen tomorrow, who will be the next President, and which stock will gain more. However, we will always be able to see and feel that the value of change is still alive. This is what made America America. Accepting change and waiting for opportunity are the main rules to be used to survive in this country. Regards, Yuriy February 7, 2011 Dear Katrina,Hope you're well and your life is going according to what you have planned. This year I'm taking ESL class at City College and thinking about taking some additional classes online. As you know, I have a job and can't study full time. At present, we have a very interesting topic in our class, and it is about American values. Some of them are completely different from ours, especially if we start talking about family values. Let me explain to you how Americans see a woman's role in a family and how they raise children compared to our country. In America, men and women have equal rights and women are fighting hard for theirs. In a marriage, women share all the household work equally with their husbands. In fact, it is rare that American women cook or take care of the kids. If so, they consider this as a full time job and want to be paid. In contrast, in our country, women cook and take care of the kids even if they are employed full time. It is a law that women are paid by employer until their babies are one year old, and, if they want or need to, they can extend this period up to three years. Very often women do all the household work. It is very interesting how Americans raise their children. In the United States, as a general rule, children are responsible for their grades in school and for doing homework. They are expected to leave home when they are eighteen years old and it is a shame for those who stay with their parents. Moreover, as a general rule parents do not pay for their children's education. In Ukraine these things are completely different. Parents are deeply involved in what their kids are doing at school, including homework. Very often parents make career decisions for children. In addition, they paying tuition, and it is a tradition that children stay with parents till they graduate. As you see, the woman's role in a family and children are raised are completely different in America and Ukraine. I think this is because these two countries have different traditions, cultures, and values, and thus have different answers to these questions. Regards, Yuriy January 31, 2011 Dear Andrew,From now on I'll try to keep you posted on what is going on in my life, and this way I can answer all the questions you have. As we both know, the last eight years were dramatic for us, even though our friendship grew up stronger. I moved to San Francisco and decided that I want to live and work in the Bay Area. I could tell you a lot of funny stories and many sad ones, but let me first give you some idea about the Russian community in San Francisco. In fact, it is very colorful, uses a strange mixed language and has saved many traditions. When I just came to California and met Russians who had lived here for a long time, the way they were talking and the accent they had were the first things that surprised me a lot. They all had an American accent when they spoke Russian, and their Russian included a lot of English words and phrases. Therefore, sometimes I had no idea what they were talking about. That mixed language is called "American Russian" and all our community uses it. It sounds strange, but for people who have lived in America for a long time, it's the easiest and the most convenient way to communicate. All these changes in the language occurred because a lot of English words and expressions could not be translated into the Russian without total or partial loss in the meaning. Moreover, as time goes by all American immigrants start thinking in English and this is the main reason for these changes in their native language. Despite the fact that many Russians have lived in the United States for more than twenty or thirty years, they still adhere to the traditions brought from home and their kids, even if they were born in America, are raised on Russian traditions. In some ways theirs is different from the American way of life, but Russian traditions are very similar to mainstream culture and that is why they do not conflict with Americans. Indeed, our community loves to celebrate American holidays like Christmas, Valentine's Day and the 4th of July, but at the same time all the Russian restaurants are full on New Year's Eve and on March 8th (Russian Women's Day). Our community in San Francisco has its own news paper, supports a lot of events in the town, and is deeply involved in social life. Despite the fact that immigrants have a lot of things to do to be able to survive in this country, people who live here are very friendly and supportive. Moreover, they were able save a lot of traditions and are always eager to help. Yours truly, Yuriy |