2014 year is coming to the end. Many things happened during this time in the world, be they good, bad or something else. There were also events, changes and new things in my own life. So it's good idea to remember what have this year brought to me.
- Realized that I like learning languages. Not only it grants access to a whole new world of possibilities, not only it helps to train brain, but it is fun by itself. For example, there is a strange and unknown text. At first it is like a cipher text. But then you begin to unravel in step by step. Of course, there are some known words. Then some loanwords can be understanded. More words are guesses from the context. Inevitable, dictionary is used for unknown termins. And now you know what this text is about. You continue reading texts this way for a long time until something changes. You don't need the dictionary anymore. Sure, the comprehension rate of the texts isn't 100%, maybe it is just 60-80%, but it doesn't matter. If you see a sentence like "Evil pirates and their dastardly deeds should be punished!" and you don't know the meaning of "dastardly", this lack of knowledge doesn't impede your apprehension of the sentence. And also a general meaning - a bad characteristic - can be derived from the context. This means a quality change in the knowledge of the language and it inspires to continue studying it;
- Experienced more deeply the fact that it is very difficult to change a person's point of view and his opinion on the matters. Especially if this is convenient for that person. The person can be your relative, close person, friend, colleague, stranger with whom you have to communicate or someone else. The first problem is that most people don't like to have direct conversations. They prefer to be angry, disappointed, stresses by themselves or tell about these problems to other people, but not to talk with the one who causes these problems. Mostly this course of actions ends in quarrels and possibly break-ups. The second problem is inability to listen. It is much easier to speak, to impose one own views or just to ignore the words of others. Another problem is the people prefer to endure the problems rather than find solutions to them. Of course there are much more problems that those which are written here. But in the end the result is that people often stick to their ways as long as possible. From time to time - they do it too long and make the problems irreparable. And this is sad;
- Acquired the confirmation of the idea that the fact that someone is your relative can be a foundation for relationships between both of you, but it can be not enough to maintain them. If the relationship is one-way - good things are done only in one direction and bad things are done in the opposite direction, then it can be better to cut these ties off. Or they will continue and will bring only pain and problems;
- Making big changes is really difficult. It is much better to stay in the comfort zone. It is more simple to stay the way you are. But one should remember the meaning of the words of Lewis Carrol "we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that". If you want to improve, to become better, to try something new, to reach success you have to change. This isn't easy, but it can give big rewards. I tried different ways of beginning a change: little steps which steadily brought me to the target or a sharp (and in some cases painful) jerk. Sometimes I failed. Even when i was able to change I felt the urges to stop it, to revert back. But when I was able to meet the target, the success inspired me to do more. And it was nice;
- Health is really important. A little health problem can cause painful consequences later. Little early care can prevent it. Some work on the health can bring big positive effects in the coming years. Health is with us for the length of the life, so it better be good. So why not improve it? So I started active exercises. Hope I'll be able to do it long enought to have some results;
- Once more remembered that I like reading. For several years I have been reading business books, manga, visual novels, textbooks, articles and so on. A lot of time was spent on learning languages. Oh, of course I read normal books, but they got buried in the flow of other things. This year I made a break and tried to read something good and big again. And I was able to remember the joy of it: imagining the world and trying to live in it, following the heroes and empathizing with them, forgetting the things happening around me, wishing to continue reading, coming up with an alternate course of actions or a continuation of the story and so on. As a result I have read more than 40 books and some fanfiction. It can amount to 5-8 mln of words, I suppose. I hope to continue reading a lot in the next year;