POST FACTUM

In this last issue of 2003 we are summing up the results of the contests held on our pages during the past year. First of all, we would like to express our thanks to all the readers who took part in the contests and brilliantly coped with the tasks, which sometimes were not easy at all. It was not easy for us either to choose the winners. We rejoiced at every letter, especially the ones containing entries both by teachers and their students. Below you can see some of the best contributions. We congratulate the winners; all of them will recieve prizes: teachers will get free half-year subscriptions to “English”, and we are sending some nice English books to the students! We are going have more contests in the upcoming year, and we look forward with pleasure to receiving your submissions.

My Prayer for the New Year

My name is Elena. I think that I live as any normal adult does. I am a schoolteacher. I am married and have two pretty daughters – four and seven years old. I am 31 years old, but I still love New Year’s Day.

I love New Year’s for many things –
Trees, candles, angel wings.
I look forward to a neighbours’ call,
A friendly chat, a cup of tea.
Love in the home means New Year to me.

I just thought I’d write you a letter and tell you what New Year means in my family and about the joy it brings into our lives every January.
When I look back at my own childhood, I don’t remember the gifts, but I remember the decorating, the sweet smelling pine tree, the scent of orange, and the family time together.
Our family’s love for the New Year is a strong bond, which holds us together and can never be broken. Even though I have long outgrown the innocence and excitement that I once possessed, I still feel a great happiness at New Year’s time.
Everything that New Year stands for is alive and well and it will be passed on through every generation in our family.
My daughters are very young and they like the New Year’s Day because they see the magnificent New Year Tree covered with multicoloured lights and sparkling tinsel, hear the joyful songs and get presents. That all invokes a whole set of happy thoughts and memories.
And what is the spirit behind the New Year, that warm, happy glow that we wish would stay around forever? It doesn’t happen automatically. It is helped by memories, by family traditions and by love.
And it seems to me that it’s our love for our little children that keeps New Year all year long.
Sometimes I think how dreary the world would be if there were no New Year’s Day. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, and no romance to make our life tolerable.
Thank God, Father Frost (and Santa Claus, of course) lives. I hope that a thousand years from now he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
In 2001 my daughters and I wrote a letter to Father Frost. We didn’t expect an answer but we got it. It was the greatest moment in the life of our family and for that my thanks are indescribable. But almost all our friends and relatives thought that it was my own New Year present for my children.
The New 2004-Year will be the year of the Goat and it will start on the first of February 2004. My own Chinese astrology sign is Pig. According to the sign, Pigs are noble, hardworking, peaceful and stubborn. They are also tolerant, honest, but, by expecting the same from others, they are incredibly naive.
Naive… Naive!? Oh, it’s about me.
The previous year was very interesting and at the same time very difficult and stressful for me. I know that nowadays no one can avoid stress. I hope that in the coming New Year I’ll reduce the effects of stress.
A lot of people make New Year’s Resolutions on the evening of December 31st. The problem is that most people forget their New Year’s Resolutions on January 2nd or 3rd. I made my resolutions, too. Probably they are a bit unusual, but here the are:

1) I’ll enter the New Year as a happy person.

2) I’ll be myself.

3) I’ll believe in myself.

4) I’ll relax my demands on myself a bit.

5) I’ll be kind and gentle with myself.

6) I’ll keep learning.

7) I’ll keep only cheerful friends.

8) If at first I don’t succeed, I’ll try and try again.

9) I’ll learn to say, “No”.

10) I’ll not forget about my family.

11) I’ll give my daughters all my warmth and love.

I’ll give them love;
I’ll show them how to give smiles away;
I’ll teach them to give a helping hand;
I’ll let them know what it is to share.
I’ll help them grow in the kindly way
And give them some happiness every day.

I think that my mottoes for the coming year will be the following words of wisdom: “Life is what I make of it; if I want to be happy for life, I’ll love what I do”.
I hope that friendship will be the key in the coming year and all my dreams will come true.
So, let the warmth of love, the joy and laughter of children, our friends, relatives and neighbours make our lives special in the New Year.
Good luck with this New Year!

By Elena Babina, Gubkin

I am Ponomaryova Helen. I study at school №17 in the 10th form. Winter is my favourite time, and also the time of holidays. They are New Year’s and Christmas. We all know and celebrate them, and I am not an exception. My favourite holiday is New Year’s. I celebrate it with my parents or friends. Each New Year we have wishes. In this New Year I also have wishes and I express them in the poem.

We await the New Year very long,
We want to prolong the moment,
We want that our dreams come true,
And we will be happy and merry, too.
And this New Year also gives the hope
For happiness and lasting success,
And I, of course, have hope
For good luck and strong health.
I want to have good new friends,
I want to be glad and not be sad.
My old friends said today to me
That they wish only property.
I want that they will always be with me
And will not ever leave me.
And now I am lifting my glass for you
And want to wish for you
That your dreams will surely come true
And you will have happiness and success
I love you, my friends and parents.

* * *

When I was a little girl
I dreamed about a fairy.
I wanted to have a ball.
And to play with my friend Mary.

I liked to celebrate the New Year.
And now it can’t be missed.
I asked for presents with tears
Because I was a small egoist.

My parents spoiled me and I was naughty.
But now I think I have reformed.
I didn’ t ask for fashionable things to be bought –
Important lessons I started to learn...

The years went by. I’m almost a young woman.
My parents often argue and quarrel.
And their relations are not so human.
I’m happy that quarrels are only oral.

My new years’ prayers are not complicated.
I ask God to give back His consent.
Also I ask peace, but it’s later.
I want that my family will be joined.

By Helen Arshinova,
10th form, School No. 17, Gubkin

It was a nice sunny day. I was playing in the grass with a cute little bug when I saw IT. IT was larger than a bug, it had fur and a long tail. I saw something like that before but I didn’t know what it was called. IT looked so tasty that I couldn’t resist eating it. But first I had to catch it. I had a lot of fun catching it, it always tried to get away from me, and then it was time to eat it.
“Zjama, wake up! I want to hug you!”
“Oh, God!” – I woke up. – “I was having a great dream! And you ruined everything! I don’t want to hug!”
“Oh, you! Cute little thing!”
Oh, man! They say Christmas is coming and if I write a letter to someone called Santa, my dreams will come true. I can’t write though, because I’m a cat. But maybe that Santa will hear me if I speak in cat language. I’ll try.
“Hello, Santa! Do you hear me? I hope you do. I have a lot of wishes and I’ll get tired of talking, so maybe you’ll try to read my mind? OK?”
I’m just a cat – an ordinary cat. And as all lucky cats I have a family. I have a mom, a dad and a sister, Marina. I understand that they are just kidding, when they call themselves so, because they are people. But I love them; they give me food and always clean out my litter box.
Santa! I wish I could talk so that my family would understand me, because they get very annoying sometimes. The bad thing is that I fully understand them, but they don’t understand me. For example, sometimes I try to tell mom that I want to eat. She carries me to the toilet and says that my litter box is clean. I know that my litter box is clean! Gosh! That’s awful.
Santa! I wish I could meet others of my kind. Once I met a little kitten. I tried to be nice but he was very rude to me. We never became friends.
Santa! I wish Vicky would come back home. Oh, I forgot to tell you about Vicky. Marina said that she was a rat. I liked Vicky. I liked to watch her move in her cage. I liked to play with her. But she didn’t like me. She told me that I was a fat lazy animal and that she didn’t want to be friends with me. I was hurt. I wanted a friend to whom I could speak so much! I wanted to play with her once, so I jumped on the table and tried to catch her with my paw through the cage. I didn’t want the cage to fall. It just happened. Luckily Vicky wasn’t hurt but she stopped speaking to me at all after that day. I don’t know why, but one day Marina carried Vicky away. She said, that Vicky would have a lot of fun in the Zoo. I don’t know what a zoo is, but maybe it’s a place where animals can relax? Anyway, I never saw Vicky again.
Santa! I wish I could go out of our apartment sometimes. I like to sit on the windowsill and watch people move around in the yard. I see cats and dogs, birds and insects. I want to play with them, but I can’t get out.
Santa! I wish Belka would return. Belka was my best friend, though we didn’t see each other very often. She is a dog. She had a family, and they let her walk around the neighbourhood. She always came to the door of our apartment because mom saved for her some meat bones. When Marina opened the door, I always ran to see Belka. I had just enough time to kiss her and ask her how she was doing. Then Marina used to close the door. Belka said she liked me and that I was a very nice and friendly cat. And then she just disappeared. No, she didn’t die. Her family took her to live in another apartment. I really miss her.
Santa! I wish I could live with my family forever. I love them all. Are you listening, Santa? I wish that Marina, mom and dad will always be happy and will always love me.
“Zjama, it’s lunch time! Do you want to eat?”
“Food!!! I’ll talk to you later again, Santa. I have to go now!”
“Are you coming?”

By Marina Bezrukova
13 years old, School No. 8, grade 9 “A”,
Abakan, Khakasia in Siberia