I graduated from a local school with an English focus, but I did poorly. I went to a commercial institute where 70% of the students were from villages where they hadn't been taught English at all, or had stopped at the 11th grade with the Past Simple tense. For two years, I sleepily drooled over my desk, repeating what I had been taught in grades 1-3. A teacher approached me and said, 'Come join our translation courses in the field of business communication.' After finishing my first year, I joined those courses; they were more interesting, and I repeated the 9th-11th grade curriculum. After my second year, the teacher suggested I go to the USA, and I said, 'Forget it, I'm fine here.' I said that in vain, because I spent that summer doing absolutely nothing. In October, two girls came to us: Irina Trunova, whose blog took second place (subtle advertising), and I unfortunately didn't catch the second one's name. They talked about how great the USA is, the Work and Travel program, etc. They left a brochure that I grabbed without a fight after they left. I came home, told my parents, and they said they would help! I was thrilled, and in early December, I went to an agency where I passed an interview. I started collecting all the necessary documents. I gathered everything, paid for everything, and started waiting for the March trip to Yekaterinburg for my visa.