It was the winter of 1993. Yerevan was covered with a white freezing blanket of snow. It was serene and peaceful outside, no cars, no people, nothing. Just the snow… and the occasional smoke emanating from a makeshift tin exhaust vent built into the kitchen or living room window, a pipe on a wall made black by whatever people had been burning to stay warm…

School habits are essential for proper development of our children. A couple weeks ago I re-started a project to learn a completely new subject. It could be driven by endless curiosity but continuous learning has become an important part of my life. We all learn something new every day but I’m talking about picking up a subject and devoting enough time to it to at least have an introductory understanding…

Words… amazing words… Some words recently stick in my mind and do not leave me alone as if reminding me of their special and unique meaning. These words are all around us and we use them without fully considering the reasons for their usage. One such word I heard today while talking to a classmate was “ծույլիկ” which literally translated from Armenian means “lazy.” In school we always had kids who did not do well in class. Sometimes these kids would also get into fights or create trouble but often …

“Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much are the three pillars of learning.” ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Seventeen years ago, with no electricity and little heat in the middle of a cold winter under candlelight, I started learning the English language. I copied down every word and sentence in hundreds of pages until I could write almost without spelling errors. I used a dictionary to translate thousands of words. I made up sentences using these words so I could understand (or at least imagine) how to use them. I even wrote a …