Ksenia Postnikova, 11 Form, Perm:
The treatise about the elusiveness of sensual and thinking
perception.
The main question: how to solve this problem?
The answer : take part in the Olympiads of Eidos.
The grounds : the description of my state of mind during the
Olympiad.
I was thinking how to write it all – and no idea deigned to
visit me and bring inspiration in its bundle, that it always
brings to me as a present. Actually – the main thing here is how
to make the idea appear out of the vacuum inside of me – I used
to call it brains, but now I doubt if I have something except
for the sleepiness, which caress my hair, saying: “Leave it all,
go to sleep…. Sleeep…. Sleeeeep….” But here appears my
will-power (it has never been unfaithful to me – my dear
spouse). And it sat down, put its strong sinewy hands on my
shoulders and whispered the transparent pills of poems into my
ear.
That’s better – the pills of poetry always help Especially those
from boxes with the tags “Mayakovsky” (it helps to swear
poetically and provokes a bout of sarcasm), “Lorka” ( it makes
me sing though out of tune – because I can’t get rid of the
Indian elephants upon my ears – and pray to the ripe orange of
the Moon), “Sylvia Plath” (this time there is nothing, but a
will to commit a suicide on the bed in hospital, in the thirsty
thicket of blood-red tulips, drinking my life through little
veins of their petals). So what do we have? I can call the idea
using the old method of
alone-in-the-bathroom-with-a-desk-for-calling-ghosts. So, there
is no chance that I won’t get frightened like a small rabbit and
my teeth won’t start chattering (the syndrome of a rabbit), when
I hear someone’s steps approaching the bathroom door. A!!!!! And
that will be mother saying: “Go to sleep!!!”. That won’t work.
OK, then. I still have voodoo dolls, Black Bible of the
Satanists, the cards and the queen of Spades among them, I still
remember my experience of asking Ivan-obscene talker to come and
I can go to one artificial fortune-teller, who also is not a
natural gipsy. And the idea is not coming.
Maybe I should sing a love song?
Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Come back and sing to me!
Sing to me what to write here because I’m running out of
thoughts at all, I’m running out of myself, leaving my soulless
body to create this absurd nonsense alone.
I’m trying to invent – like I tried while thinking over the
tasks. But that was not the right way to do it.
First of all – forget that you are a living body – imagine you
being an inanimate form. “On the beach at night alone, as the
old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song. As I
watch the bright stars shining – I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future”. Imagine you’re on the beach
at night alone…. That tide waves lick your feet, washing away
grains of tiredness…. That the ocean is breathing with its
enormous breasts and like a mother feeds her baby – it gives
milk to the stars, so that they could shine and laugh. And then
they fall down into the bosom of the ocean and start sparkling
from the depths. What a beauty! What a suffocating elation – to
stare at it, for hours, for ages, thousands of years and still
stare, like you have just seen it and has been deprived of your
power to own this beauty….
I heard somebody touch me – but there was nobody around. When I
saw that there was no computer screen anymore – but ocean in
front of me. And I took the teeth of a Moon dragon and I saw her
(my inspiration) clapping her hands and trying to escape waves.
She has come! She told me about love – and those were her words
in my Valintine Message. Don’t think that it was a plagiarism,
because she is a part of me – but so subtle, that I can’t even
determine what part of my body she lives in. She comes with the
shivers up my spine, when the eye-pupils are extremely black and
hands are frozen and wet. You can even feel your hair moving as
if these are snakes on your head. And happily nobody even
notices this metamorphose inside of you – when the wide wings
open their windows behind and raise winds in your thoughts.
That was exactly how I felt while doing the first task – that
was the most difficult part of my work, because speaking about
love needs sincerity and even the slightest hint, the slightest
sign of indifference ruins everything, turns cloudy palaces into
dust and burnt entrails of poisoned fish. That was exhausting –
to stir up the soul and filter it, because there were so many
repulsive and lousy rags, that I felt sick and ashamed of
myself. And tried to put them off immediately – not to smell
their contagious triteness.
Then it was easier – just reflecting the sensations that came to
your mind in written form. But it is much more difficult to do
it in English – because the more I try to think English – the
less I can. Probably because I’m too Russian (like Catherine
II). Probably because I’m not as English as Victoria. But they
seem to understand each other – am I right, ladies? No doubt –
they say. Do you like No Doubt. You bet – Gwen is an American
dream with her platinum blond life, I wish I could change my
palace to her microphone. No way, Vick – go and conquer India.
The Indians vegetate in ignorance and poverty without you
admiring their white elephants. And you, Cate, don’t give
palaces to your favorites – they have enough of mansions, and
jewels, and slaves. Go and rule over your slaves, and feel
yourself the second Cleopatra. Why the second? – but you ARE the
second. To be the first you should have become Peter.
So girls, come back to your thrones and satin robes, decorated
with diamonds and rubies. Pearls are out of fashion. And so are
you. Sorry for having made you take such a trip. I was under the
impression of “Fear and Disgust in Las Vegas”, “Pulp Fiction”,
“Nospheratu” and Russian reality. But I was kind enough not to
make you go to strip tease show or die because of taking too
much.
When in the end I took away the list with tasks – I still felt
her behind my back. Who is she – I will never understand I
guess. She is not a Muse, not an angel – she must be woken up in
the deepest corners of the blood. But first of all – you should
push aside the angel, throw away the Muse and not thrill with
delight reading the violet poetry of the XVIII century and
looking into the monumental telescope, where behind the glasses
the Muse, exhausted by rules, is at death’s door.
Only she is real – to fight with. Though she isn’t written in
any document, or pictured in a drawing of all-knowing Leonardo.
But she comes in half past an hour, after reading the tasks,
when you are already dip in the pool of desire to do something.
She comes through the walls, through the closed doors and
windows, with her light flying steps upon the red carpet in the
corridor, having forgotten the second pair of shoes – she bursts
into the computer study, where we sit, shouting: “Who ordered
PIZZA!!!” And then she cuts it into hot, steaming, delicious
pieces. The ingredients are: star dust, the kernels of
ex-planets, eggs of a prophetic bird, milk of the Milky Way,
sunny olives from Greece, French singing cheese, English very
right bacon, Mexican corn, stolen from their bloody Gods and
Russian salt cucumbers. Everything is mixed and the most
important thing is a piece of chalk from Venus – it gives
tremendous strength to stand the attack of ideas (they whirl
around like a swarm of midges, but seldom give the opportunity
to catch them). So, the story begins…. But when it ends – no one
knows.
But that is happiness – to know that you have an ability not
just to watch TV, but to animate your way of thinking – though
it’s understandable only to you.
Finally, I could have chosen 5 million words, but I found only 2
to describe my feelings entirely: “Thank you”
---
Adelina Subkhantulova, 8 Form, Ufa:
When I lay on the sofa I looked on the window. The small star
fell and I could ask my wish.
I wanted to see the competition in a dream. I was at the disco.
I was Snow Queen. Everybody
was happy, but suddenly I was attacked by missionaries. They
wanted to steel me. They were angry, because they were not
invited at the party. They took me on the strange country. Their
king canceled Future and Present Tenses, and time went back. I
flew from this country. I swam on the bath and I rowed with
small branches fir tree. At last I came back to the taiga.
---
Irna Karpluk, Teacher of English, Beloretsk:
Once upon a time there was a nice school, called Gymnasium.
There were many funny students there, but some of them were
brilliant like stars. Those stars tried to sparkle everywhere:
in school English competitions, in town English competitions
even in English competitions of there wonderful country. And on
January 23 rd the last English competitions on Internet took
place.
The tasks were so interesting and exciting. That all stars
sparkling gave the green light to their fantasy and imagination.
The most impressive was a task about Kolyada. All the stars
working like bus achieved the main aims. They were sparkling and
sparkling with new knowledge of English. I was pleased with
their optimism and enthusiasm.
Thank you, dear colleagues, for giving us chance to be happy,
and my little stars began sparkling bright after your
unforgettable English competitions!
Yours sincerely, Irina Karpljuk.
---
Denis Polyansky, 11 Form, Bratsk:
Hi to all of the creators, managers of this project. Well, what
can I say. It’s great, incredible and fascinating thing!
Feelings are overfilling me. I have examined myself with your
olympiad for the first time. It’s a pity that I study in the
11th grade and will not be able to practice my knowledge and
creative work in this Olympiad more. Now I’d like to share my
thoughts during the olympiad with you.
Once I’ve seen the task I turned hot. Really I had thought it
would be something unusual, but so much unusual. I could hardly
realize the meaning of tasks and what to do at all. After I have
read the tasks for several times and got calm everything seemed
to be not so impossible. The most difficult one for me was the
task with sonnet. I have to spend a lot of time to do it, that’s
not a kind of tasks I like.
The rest were interesting, especially precept of the English
language. Writing the dialogue of cultures I felt disappointment
with the only fact: I didn’t remember the tale very good. Now
I’m glad to have been participating. Now I can say with pride:”
I’m aware of Eidos and tried one of their works myself.”
I wish good luck to this interesting project.
Denis.
---
Svetlana Sankina, 11 Form, Perm:
Oh my god, it was incredible, crazy, unforgettable day… the day
of the Olympiad.
9 AM. In the morning you feel like going back to bed. There are
no thoughts, it seems you know nothing.
The first task: Àçû Áóêâ Âåäàÿ, Ãëàãîëþ Äîáðî… Nice expression,
Does anyone knows what it means?..in Russian at first. No, it
was a mystery for all of us. I felt I became panic-stricken. To
try to make a phrase out of the Latin letters to express the
precept of the English language. Interesting task by the way but
Dear Lord nobody knows how to do it. Frankly speaking it is not
clear what do you want from poor things(I mean us, of course).
Task ¹2. Sonnet. First I want to say that I like this poem very
much, I’ve read it already on one Olympiad so in spite of the
fact that there are a lot of Old English words I could see the
whole sense of it. But suddenly in my head there appeared one
thought ”Not all of us could understand it, in fact it is a love
sonnet, but a very strange one” Different styles offered to us
are very modern and close to all teens, so I gave myself free
hand and was absorbed in a task. Sometimes I write the songs,
but never rap(thanks to you I’ve done this in English, I’m not
sure whether I made it good or not, but still it was awesome.)
Task ¹3. Event. Great, I knew what to do exactly!J Frankly I’m
writing a research work “The role of twinning between Perm and
Oxford” I consider this topic to be very urgent and very
interesting for everyone. I made up my mind to use my deep
knowledge on this subject in the Olympiad.
Task ¹4. Philosophy and grammar. I my opinion grammar means
practice, first of all, this way you show that you know all the
rules of English. In this case grammar turned to be a theory. Of
course I’ve explain my point of view, but I don’t think it was
done in the best way. Rubbish better to say, nonsense.
The last task. Dialogue of cultures. I know all the characters
of the English tales. The most difficult to me was to recall the
heroes of Russian tales. Shame on meL At last I’ve chosen Ivan
Durak and you know what, I’m a good tale-teller(IT WAS MY
DISCOVERY, THANKS A LOT). My story doesn’t have an end(it should
have been only a fragment) but I’m interested in it, really. I
mustn’t boast but it was the most ingenious task of my work.
Before this Olympiad I thought I wasn’t a creative person. In
Russian I wouldn’t manage to write a half of these tasks, but
the English language and your center Eidos have given me an
impulse, I’ve found a lot of fresh ideas in my head. And ten
years later I will recall that friendly atmosphere which was
reigning in the class during 6 hours of our work.
---
Lubov Moshkina, 11 Form, Perm
The skeletons hidden in my soul
We are the hollow men,
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Have you ever met any person who quotes T .S. Eliot? I haven’t!
But at the same time I don’t dare to suppose that such a
phenomenon takes place because people around me are poor fish.
Instead, it’s always fun getting acquainted with somebody who
appears to be a very rough diamond. Good gracious! An individual
like this one gives me quite a thrill as if he deigns to share
his knowledge with me hand over fist. However, I cannot bear
arrogant guys whose only duty is to make the opportunity to go
back on their word and carry out a bluff! From my viewpoint, if
you boast you’re efficient, don’t fly into passion when others
ask you to demonstrate your mental abilities.
Perhaps, you are interested in the purpose of this
characteristic. Well, let’s cut a long story short. I’ve only
depicted the importance of being responsible for your promises
and intentions. At all events, today I’ve brought myself
together; I haven’t gone all to pieces and lost my heart. Yet, I
confess the Olympiad is far from being entertaining, but on the
other hand, it is not very complicated, too. In fact, any
competition reveals your weaknesses. Still, you aren’t to break
a record unless you have the notion of your drawbacks. But what
causes a subtle hint of suffocating doubts is the proposal to
express my ideas. Shivers up my spine!!! The whirl of questions
captivates my poor head and determines its further psychological
frustration. This repulsive and filthy depression turns me off…
And notwithstanding, I’m looking for somebody’s brilliant essay
which might eradicate my absent-mindedness and hide my
half-witted thoughts. But as usual, my tremendous work comes to
nothing. The result is nil! How trite but how fair!
Even more, every time when I’m going to envision the contents of
my future opus, I realize that I’ll never be able to write it
down. Why so? Oh, if only I could guess! How to describe this
feeling of total helplessness? I wish I found some suitable
words… And so what?
Frankly speaking, I identify myself with smart and creative
teens; therefore I’m searching for an intriguing plot and new
forms of expressing emotions of a spiritual kind that fill my
soul with innocent expectations of something new and
extraordinary…
But the problem is that I get used to studying English very hard
and such a habit makes me keep in mind various sentences, models
and phrasal combinations which are expected to give me a
possibility to speak the language fluently. But…
Every medal has its reverse. Is it correct? Really, my brain is
so overloaded with different literary stamps that I can’t help
using them in my everyday speech. And this damned trend leads to
aggravating consequences. Firstly, my words are not
easy-to-understand and they might seem high-flown. What’s more,
when I begin to share my experience with others, they constantly
tell me how knotty and even heavy my English is. I’m sure you
hate being corrected… And so do I!
The strongest desire of mine is to be the best, to be the first,
to be the brightest example for everyone… What an ambitious
person I’m! But don’t draw your conclusions on the spur of the
moment. I do not cry about my dreams, I disguise them deep
inside… It rarely happens but sometimes people who surround me
open my secrets, find my skeletons and grin at these “horrible
mysteries”… Actually, I’d rather build a wall of white marble
providing that I don’t want my wishes to be disclosed… However…
How to live in isolation? In my opinion we shouldn’t forget that
someday the time will come and we’ll find out that we need
someone to talk to or just to sit together on a sofa listening
to any quiet, calm music. What shall we do? Probably, we’d
better get rid of our shortcomings and devote all our physical
and psychological abilities to the development of those features
which are thought to bring us to a “wide” life…
Generally, be meek, be self-possessed, be well-bred, be… Be a
man who is ready for satisfying the insatiable mass called human
society! And maybe this will help, who knows…
Maybe rain or maybe snow, maybe yes or maybe no…
“Never mind!” they say! “Don’t puzzle yourself!” they advise!
“Take it easier!” they add! And is that all? How can I take such
stupid warnings into account?! It’s just impossible, incredible!
I do not intend to follow these suggestions! All I need is two
or three offerings concerning the way of showing my identity and
up-bringing some “outstanding” qualities of my character. And
what is awful if they distinct from the mainstream principles?..
Look! Life would be extremely boring if we were the same.
What makes the world go round?
Not only money, but also your individuality, your firm belief
that you, only you have an innate superiority and you, only you
are allowed to shake the Universe! Otherwise, how to become
strong-willed, self-assured and well-to-do? I’m personally
confident that it’s necessary to take care of our peculiarities
because they let us leave some signs of our presence; and the
most important of them is memory…
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
You’ll be remembered for you soul and actions whether you like
it or not…
And I accept this challenge, I choose this way – nothing else
matters. Today I’ve made up my mind to strive for the victory,
to vie for everything connected with my possible successful and
flourishing future. After all, charity begins at home and self
comes first… Does it sound terrible? Am I egoistic? Well, I take
my position for granted and I’ll never give up my opinion in
favour of someone else’s. This is my philosophy and you should
have respect for it… But still…
Man proposes, God disposes. Or no fate?
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