My future profession

My future profession. When you leave school you understand that the time to choose your future profession, your future life has become.

Its not an easy to make the right choice of a job. I have known for long time that leaving school is the beginning of my independent life, the beginning of a far more serious examination of my abilities and character. What do I want to be when I leave school ? Its very important question for me. A few years ago it was difficult for me to give a definite answer. As the years passed I changed my mind a lot of times about what science or field of industry to specialize in. Its difficult to make up my mind and choose one of the hundreds jobs to which I might be better suited.

A coupe of years ago I wanted to become a doctor, you know I wanted to help people who had problems with health. Then I wanted to become a policeman, then a spaceman, I even wanted to become a professional football player. But all of them now are in the past, they were like childrens dreams and nothing more. Now I have already decided what to do. Id like to be an aviator.

I know that its very difficult. I should know perfectly everything about the planes, airports, weather and other things. You know that the weather is very important thing for the flights too. I must be well-educated and well-informed. So thats why at first I am going to go to the Aviation University in Moscow, then when I finish studding Ill go to my country to try to get a job in the air companies. You know may be something will be not OK, because I dont know what will happen tomorrow, but I know that Ill do everything to realize my plane and my dreams.

I also want to say that the profession should be chosen according to the character and hobbies of the person. Thats why parents mustnt make their children choose the thing they like parents like. Children must do it themselves. Because they must love the thing they do, believe that people need them and their job will bring them more pleasure. When I started running seven years ago, I could manage only about a quarter of a mile before I had to stop. Breathless and aching, I walked the next quarter of a mile, then I jogged the next quarter of a mile, alternating these two activities for a couple of miles.

Within a few weeks I could jog half way round Hampstead Heath without stop-ping. Soon I started to run up the quarter-mile slope to the top of Parliament Hill, although I had to stop at the top to get my breath back. Eventually I found that I could even manage to get up the hill comfortably.

I started to run because I felt desperately unfit. But the biggest pay-off for me was-and still is- the deep relaxation that I achieve by taking exercise. It tires me out but I find that it does calm me down. In those early days I saw few other runners. Now there are many more-and not just the macho sports freaks. Men and women of all ages have now taken up running. Some 25,000 runners aged five to 85 are attracted each year to the Sunday Times Fun Run in Hyde Park. In the last two years the London Marathon has become the biggest British sporting event- overtaking the boat race and the Derby in the number of spectators it attracts.

When I started to jog I never dreamt of running in a marathon, but in 1982 I realized that if I trained for it, it was within my reach, and after a slow, six-month build-up I man-aged the 26.2 miles in just under four hours. A creditable performance for a first-timer and a far cry from those days when I had to stop for breath after a quarter of a mile. What about heart attacks?My story shows that an unfit 39-year-old, as I was when I started running, who had taken no serious exercise for 20 years, can do the marathon-and that this is a sport in which women can beat men. But is it crazy to do it? Does it make sense to run in the expectation of becoming healthier? What about the chances of injuring yourself or dying of a heart attack? I was personally convinced of the health benefits of running because I felt unfit, and I wasn t worried about the risk of a heart attack, because I was not a smoker and I was sticking to a fairly low animal-fat diet. But one person I knew well did die immediately after a jog and plenty of people told me I was mad to start running.

Reassuring evidence now comes from doctors in Seattle, showing that vigorous exercise actually reduces the chances of heart attack.

They found that people who had a sudden heart attack when they appeared to be completely fit had taken less exercise than those of similar age. According to their findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association volume 248, p 3113 it is necessary to take 20 minutes of vigorous exercise at least two or three days a week to obtain some protection from heart attack.

Apart from jogging, the exercise might be swimming, singles tennis or squash, digging or chopping wood. Whatever it is, the exercise should leave you out of breath.

There is a small risk of unaccustomed stress causing a heart attack when a person is very unfit, but this can be reduced if exercise is always increased in easy stages. My advice is if you are under 40, are healthy and feel well, you can begin as I did by jogging gently until you are out of breath, then walking, and alternating the two for about two miles. Build up the jogging in stages until you can do the whole distance comfortably. At first, two or three times a week will probably be enough. People over 40 who are in any doubt about their health should see their doctor before starting an exercise program.

Over-40s should begin by making a vigorous walk of at least two miles part of the daily routine. When you can do this comfortably you can start the mixed jogging and walking routine and progress from there. You will have to expect soreness of muscles and joints to begin with. If soreness changes to pain, or if you find that you suffer from deep tiredness which you cannot shake off, then stop jogging for a while and just walk. Scotland.

Scotland is one of four part of the GB. In area Scotland is more than half as big as England. The principal cities of the country are its capital Edinburgh and the main industrial center Glasgow. Scottish towns look very different from English towns. Some words about Edinburgh. Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, is one of Britains most attractive cities. Its a city for people who like to walk. You are never far from green parks, gardens and hills - even in the main shopping streets.

Its a busy modern city, but the history is everywhere. At the top of the highest hill in Edinburgh is Edinburgh Castle. It was the home of Scotlands royal family until 1603 when King James the 6th of Scotland became king of England and moved to London. The road which begins at the castle and goes eastwards is called Royal Mile. At the other end of the Royal Mile is the Palace of Hollyroodhouse. It was built by a Scottish king before Scotland and England were united to make Great Britain. Now it is a second home for the Queen or her children, who usually visit Edinburgh in the summer.

When the royal family is not there you can visit the palace and see a lot of interesting things. There are nine hills in Edinburgh. They are long-dead volcanoes. From the tops of them you can see two bridges the modern road bridges an the old rail bridges which has carried trains to the Highlands for more than a hundred years.

The highlands of Scotland is mountainous and wild. In the winter its white with snow but in the summer its purple. Highlands are famous for the Scottish Olympics or the Highland games its real name. These games are not only sporting competitions music and different traditional games are very important too. While athletes throw the hammer at the one end of the arena, you can watch a dancing competition at the other end. there is also a game for the strongest athletes - tossing the caber, which weights 60 kilos and is six metres long. These games are very popular in Highlands.

Usually between the mountains are rivers and lakes. Scottish people like fishing very much, thats why they say that Scottish rivers are good for two fishing is one, the other is Scotch whisky. Whisky is made from water and barley. The method hasnt changed for hundreds years. Scotch whisky is the best one. Scotland is also famous for its kilt, the most important part of national dress and bagpipes - the national instrument.

I thing Scotland is very beautiful country and if you visit it you shall never forget it. William Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the most famous British playwright in history. People know his name in almost every country in the world. But who exactly was William Shakespeare? That is the question! Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on 23 April, 1564. Families were big in those days. William had seven brothers and sisters. But his parents werent poor his father, John Shakespeare, was a successful businessman who bought and sold leather and wool. His mother was the daughter of a rich farmer.

When Shakespeare left school, he went to work for his father. But soon after, he met and fell in love with Ann Hathaway, the daughter of a farmer who lived in Stratford. They got married in December 1582, and just five months late, their first daughter, Susanna, was born. William was 18. Ann was 25. What did Shakespeare do for the next ten years? We dont know exactly.

We dont know why he gave up a good job in his fathers business and moved to London. We dont know exactly when or why he became an actor and playwright. All we know is that in 1592 he wrote his first play. After that, his plays became popular very quickly, and he made a lot of money. Four hundred years ago, Shakespeare built a theatre - The Globe - here in the center of London. It was one of Londons first theatres. It was round and had no roof over the center - like the theatres of ancient Rome. OK in Rome - not such a good idea in cold, rainy London! The people of London loves going to the theatre. The globe could hold three thousand people.

Some people sat to watch the plays other stood in the middle, in front of the stage. The audience were usually noisy, often clapping and cheering, and shouting to the actors - and there were only actors, no actresses. Young boys played the parts of women. It often rained in London then, too. And everyone got very wet. In 1610, after about twenty-five years in London, Shakespeare came back here to Stratford.

He was rich, and he had a big house where he enjoyed life with his family and friends. But he didnt stop writing plays. What kind of plays did William Shakespeare write? Well, he wrote thirty-nine plays. Some of them are comedies, for example, A Midsummer Nights Dream and Comedy of Errors. They have happy endings. Others are stories from English history, for example, stories about the kings of England.

They are very patriotic. Queen Elizabeth 1 often went to see them. And the others are tragedies, such as Hamlet and MacBeth - these are sad, dark stories of murder and revenge. Shakespeare died on his fifty-second birthday in 1616. He is buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. But the characters in his plays are still with us today. The Russian Federation. The Russian Federation is the largest country in the world. It occupies about one-seventh of the earths surface. Its total area is about 17 million square kilometers.

The country is washed by 12 seas of 3 oceans the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic. Russia borders with many country. They are Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Norway, Finland, the Baltic states, Belorussia and the Ukraine. It also has a sea border with the USA. The population of the Russian Federation is nearly 250 million people. The capital of the country is Moscow. Its its largest political, scientific, cultural and economical center. Russia is very rich in mineral resources.

There is gold, platinum, diamonds, coal, peat, oil, gas and wood. There are over two million rivers in Russia. The Europes biggest river, the Volga, flows into the Caspian sea. Others main rivers are the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena and the Amur. Russia is also rich in beautiful lakes. The world biggest lake - the Caspian sea and the world deepest lake - Lake Baikal are in it. Russia has one-six of the worlds forests. They are concentrated in the European north of the country, in Siberia and in Far East. On the vast territory of the country there are different types of climate, from arctic in the north to subtropical in the south. In the middle of the country the climate is continental.

Russia has four beautiful seasons winter, spring, summer and autumn. They are very different. The Russian Federation is a parliamentary republic. The Head of State is the President. He is elected for 4 years and his powers are limited by the Duma. At present Russia has some political and economical problems. The price are rising, the rate of inflation is very high, people are losing their jobs and many factories are stopped. But I believe that in the future the young generation of your country will sold all these problems and they shall make Great Russia as strong and powerful as it used to be. The United States of America.

The United States of America is located in North America. It is one of the largest countries in the world. The population of the USA is about 250 million people.

The USA has 50 states. The largest of Americas states is Alaska. Its nearly 400 times the size of Rhode Island, which is the smallest state. But Alaska has half the population of Rhode Island. The capital of the country is Washington DC the District of Colombia. It was chosen as permanent site for the nations capital on December 1800 by George Washington. Its main cities are New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston.

There are many tall buildings in them that really scrape the sky, thats why they are called skyscrapers. Its highly developed country. It is rich in coal, oil, iron and natural gas. It exports a lot of raw materials, industrials and agricultural products. The United States of America is a federal republic. The American parliament called Congress has two chambers the House of Representative and the Senate. The head of State is the president. He is elected for four years and his powers are limited by the Constitution.

Now the President of the USA is Bill Clinton. The flag of the country has 13 red and white stripes representing the original 13 states and 50 stars - for each of the state of it. Each state has its own national motto, bird and flower as its symbol. America as any other country has its own customs, traditions and holidays. The United States is called melting pot because people from all over the world have mixed together to create modern America society.

The earliest immigrants came from every countries of the world. People enjoy the wonder of nature practically in every state. The Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains, forest, plains, parties and even deserts, wonderful lakes, water falls and rivers cover the American territory that equals about 9.4 million square kilometers. Together with Hawaii and Alaska it is the 4th largest nation in the world in area behind Russia, Canada and China. Among the most famous sites of interest are the Great Lakes, Niagara falls, the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and other.

There are many beautiful Nation park and protected areas of wilderness in America. I think that the USA is very beautiful country and if you visit it you will never forget it. Traveling. Here is a story of a man who had an terrible holiday The first thing that went wrong was that the country we were going to decided to have a war a few days before we were going there. So that was the end of that. But the plane we were going on was stopping off at Rome. So rather than not having a holiday at all, we thought we d go to Italy. Very nice. See the sights.

Go to the beaches and get fat with pasta. We were at the airport waiting for the plane and a friend of mine who lived near the airport had come to see us off. So we were having a few drinks in the bar and joking with this friend of mine, Peter, saying Poor old you in cold rainy England. This time tomorrow we ll be in Italy on the beach.

And I went down to see if the flight had been called and discovered it had gone. It was a terribly stupid mistake. We hadn t checked the time of departure. I was sure it was going 9 something but it was going at 19 something which of course is 7 o clock. So we were actually there in the bar when it went without us. We were determined to have our holiday. The irony was that Peter was now going back to his comfortable home and we were stuck in the cold and the rain at 10 o clock at night.

You see, it was a charter flight so we couldn t book another one. We lost our money and all the other flights were booked up. Well, we got a train to the South Coast and caught the midnight boat across the Channel, froze to death all night, it was a terrible crossing with people being sick everywhere. And eventually we got to I think it was Dieppe and then a train to Paris. We got to Paris very early in the morning and I thought we d be all right. You see, we now had to hitch hike because a lot of our money had gone on the boat and the train, but I thought Well, it s very early in the morning, we ll get a good place to start hitching and we ll soon be well on our way. We got to the start of the motorway and I just couldn t believe it. I ve never seen so many people trying to hitch a lift in all my life. Well, it was then it suddenly dawned on me. It was August the first wasn t it? and on August the first in France the whole population goes on holiday and there were hundreds of people, stopping the traffic, banging on drivers windows trying to persuade them to stop and give them a lift. It was chaos, disastrous.

Well, we got moving eventually. A lorry driver gave us a lift. And then things started to get better, as we got further south and it got warmer, you know, and we thought At last, the holiday s beginning.

Well, we camped that night and we then set off again the next day. We got some lifts, and met a great chap who owned a vineyard.

He took us back to his farm and we tasted all this wine - Burgundy, my favorite - and we had a great time. Now the holiday really was starting. Well, he took us back to the motorway, and there we were by the side of the road, the sun was shining, we were a bit merry, sang a few songs - you know, life was great. And we got another lift from well he was a maniac, complete maniac. He seemed nice enough, but within a few minutes he was driving at about a hundred miles an hour, overtaking on the inside on the motorway, with his stereo at full volume, one hand on the wheel and well the other hand on various parts of Susan s body. What! So what did you do? I don t know why I m laughing I ve never been so frightened in all my life. We were absolutely -helpless.

Susan tried to say that she had to go to the toilet, but he wouldn t stop then she pretended to be sick in his car, and he stopped in seconds. He had this really flash expensive car, and as soon as he stopped we just jumped out and ran. The worst thing was this tremendous drop from feeling so good to thinking that we were going to get killed.

We eventually got down to the south of France and began to have a good time, and then down to Italy. We ran out of money, of course, but apart from that, it was good. I ve never had such a tiring holiday. When we got back, I was exhausted. At the end of the holiday, I needed a holiday! And this is a story of an old woman. She has traveled all over the world in her tiny van. It s a nice way of having holiday.

Now at this moment, somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic, Olive Gibbs is probably chugging along the road, in the early morning in her tiny camping van. The travel bug came to Mrs. Gibbs rather late in life. About 14 years ago, to help her get over the death of her husband she went on an overland bus trip to Katmandu. This fired her with the enthusiasm to travel more, but as she couldn t afford to go on extensive organized tours, she bought a camper and took to the road alone.

Now at the age of 72, she s clocked up about 75,000 miles on trips that have taken her to America, Australia and South Africa. Ann Catchpole met her at her home on the Sussex coast just before she was setting out on her current venture another wander around America, Canada and Mexico, that ll take about a year, and she d been very busy that afternoon packing up the van, mainly, as she told Ann, with stocks of food. Of all the meals that I have during the day, my breakfast is the one that I like. It s not that I have a large breakfast but I do like my toast and marmalade.

I ve got quite a few pounds of marmalade in my van at the moment, I should think I have about 10 pounds, and when that run out and if I m down in California by then I shall make some marmalade. I take English things like Marmite which not many other countries of the world seem to appreciate. I m also taking crisp breads to the United States because I don t care for their bread very much. And I take biscuits because I don t care for their biscuits very much. But otherwise I can buy everything I need in the United States.

But I don t like wasting my time shopping, so I carry as much as I can and visit a supermarket only when I m forced to. Well, I know vaguely which way I m going to go, but I do change my direction if there s something I hear about which I think I would like to see, or I don t like the road I ll go a completely different way. And at the beginning of the day I don t know quite where I m going to sleep at night. I wait until I feel tired or I wait until I see somewhere that attracts me and then I stop. The first thing I do, and I do this deliberately, I make myself a cup of tea, and I sit outside my van because I think it, it pleases the Americans to see an English lady having afternoon tea. But as soon as I really as soon as I arrive, especially in the United States or Canada, the men all want to talk to me about places they ve been to when they were in the army during the war over here. Other people want to know and tell me about where their ancestors came from, and nearly always I have been to the places, or at least know something about them, because I do travel quite a bit in my own country as well as going abroad.

In fact when I m trying to unpack at the end of a day s journey and get a meal in the evening, life becomes very difficult because people gather round and want to know all about me and it s almost dark before I can get on with my unpacking and getting a meal ready.

But I do try to get my cup of tea in first.

In Zimbabwe, at that time called Rhodesia, and I was actually camping in Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwe ruins. And during the night someone went by with a torch. It woke me up, and I just thought it was somebody going to a toilet, and I took no notice. But when I woke up in the morning I found that a lot of my papers had been taken, and the wallet in which I kept them. And of course I didn t realize at the time what was going on. It must have been the noise of the door closing which woke me up. I suppose I m very foolish but often I don t lock myself in my van at night.

Sometimes I do if I feel at all nervous or if I m in a camp site on my own, then I do lock myself in. Each country has something special about it. But I think the beauty of South Africa is something that I shall never forget. I used to stand sometimes when I was there and say to myself, Just look and look as much as you can in case you don t come this way again.

Wales. Wales is a country of lakes and mountains. Its about the half the size of Switzerland, and it has a population of two and three quarter million. On the north of Wales is some of the most beautiful scenery in the British islands, the Snowdon mountain. Snowdon is Britains second highest mountain. Wales is an not independent nation. In 1292, the English king, Edward, invaded Wales and built fourteen huge castles to control the Welsh people.

His son, Edward, became the first prince of Wales, since then all the kings and queens of England have given their eldest sons the title, Prince of Wales. Prince Charles became the twenty-first Prince of Wales. Although the English have ruled Wales for many centuries, Wales still has its own flag, culture, and, above all, its own language. In the towns and villages of North Wales, many people speak English only as a second language. Their first language is Welsh. In Llanberis, a small town at the foot of Snowdon, eighty-six per cent people speak Welsh as their first language.

At the local primary school children have nearly all their lessons in Welsh. The children should be bilingual by the time that they are eleven years old. It is not a problem for children to learn two languages at the same time. Children have insight into two cultures, so have all the folk tales of two languages. Children like Welsh because in Welsh you spell things just how you say them, in English there are more silent letters.

Welsh is one of the oldest languages in Europe. Its a Celtic language, like Breton in France, Gaelic in Ireland, or Gaelic in Scotland. Two and a half thousand years before these languages were spoken in many parts of Europe. They died out when the Romans invaded these areas, but some of them survived in the north-west corner of Europe. But over the last hundred years the number of Welsh-speaker has fallen very quickly.

Now only twenty per cent of Welsh people speak Welsh. Here are some of the reasons for the decline. In the nineteenth century people thought that Welsh an uncivilized language. If you wanted to be successful in life you had to learn English, the language of the British Empire. So in many schools children were forbidden to speak Welsh. At the beginning of the twentieth century many English and Irish people moved to South Wales to work in the coal mines and steel works. They did not learn Welsh. People, especially young people, moved away from the Welsh-speaking villages and farms of north and west Wales to look for work in the big towns and cities, so the Welsh-speaking communities became much smaller.

In the 1960s and 1970s many English people bought holiday cottages in villages in Wales. Most of them did not learn Welsh. This also pushed up the price of houses so that local Welsh-speaking people cold not afford them. English comes into every Welsh home trough the television, the radio, newspapers, books, etc. There are Welsh-language TV and radio stations, but far fever than English ones. And now there is cable and satellite TV, too-in English, of course! The decline has now stopped, because a lot has been done. Road signs, bilingual documentation, and there is a Welsh language act. The future of Welsh is uncertain.

The problem is that Welsh has to survive next door to English, and, as we all know, English is a very successful language. Young problems.

When you leave school you understand that the time of your independence life and the beginning of a far more serious examination of your abilities and character has come. You also understand that from now youll have to do everything yourself, and to fight with everybody around you for better life. The first problem that young people meet is to choose their future profession, it means that they have to choose the future of their life. Its not an easy task to make the right choice of a job. You know children have a lot of dreams about their future to become a superman or a policeman or a doctor Its very easy they think, but when they become older and see real world they understand that in all professions need to know perfectly about what you do, you must be well-educated and well-informed.

Thats why I think its very important to have a good education at school. And if you work hard everything will be OK. Another problem of young people is drugs. This is a relatively new problem but it is becoming more and more dangerous. Million young people today are using drugs, and most of them will die. Usually they want just to try it, then again and again and after year may be two years they will die. It is true. Because there are no medicine to help you. Thats why never do it, if you do - it goes bad, very bad. I think that police must work hard to protect young people from drugs. Because drugs will kill our young generation and our future will be very bad.