My working day (1)

I am very busy on my weekdays. My weekdays don’t differ much one from another. My working day usually begins at 7 o’clock. I never wake up myself, my mother always wakes me up. I’m not an early riser, that is why it’s very difficult for me to get out of bed, especially in winter. Sometimes I do my morning exercises. Then I go to the bathroom, clean my teeth and wash my face and hands. The cold water makes me feel not so sleepy. Then I go back to my room, make my bed, put on my clothes and comb my hair.

By that time my breakfast is ready. My mother usually cooks it for me. When my mother is busy I make breakfast myself. While having breakfast I listen to the tape-recorder or watch TV.

At a quarter past eight I go to the University. I live not far from the University, that is why it usually takes me ten minutes to walk there. I often meet my friends on the way to the University, we go together and chat.

The classes at the University start at 8.30. Usually I have four or five lessons a day. We have 15 minutes breaks between classes, during which we can talk and have a bite. The lessons are over at 10 minutes to three.

When classes are over I go home. Sometimes I go to the library, where I can get some necessary books.

When I come back home I have dinner and a little rest. I start doing my homework in the evening. It often takes me 2 or 3 hours to do it. Then I play computer games or read a book. Sometimes my friends come to my place in the evening and we listen to music.

My parents get home at about 7 o’clock. We have supper together. Then we sit in the living room, drink tea, watch TV or just talk.

At half past 11 I usually go to bed. My working day is over.

My working day (2) ( for advanced students)

When I studied at lyceum my usual working days looked practically the same. But in my opinion, everything depends on person himself, so I did my best to make them more interesting and useful.

Life is impossible without work. Of course not all creatures as well as people like it, but it is very important for progress. Our teachers and parents always say that hard work is the only way to achieve our aims and goals. To my mind one can't appreciate the value of rest if he doesn't work. As for me I tried to organize my working day in such a way that I would be able to do as much work as possible.

My working day usually started like this. At sharp 6.30 my radio alarm buzzed. As it was actual on my bed it literary blasted me into awareness of the morning. This was due to the loudness I needed to wake me up. Though I am not a lazy-bone, in winter it was always difficult for me to wake up early. I hate the cold that's why I usually tried to stay in bed as long as possible. Sometimes I lay for a while deciding whether to pretend to be fatally ill, but then I usually gave up this silly idea because only little children practiced it and besides this trick usually didn't work. But when spring came and the air was fresh, when the sun shone brightly in the morning and the birds were singing I forgot about my sleep and felt full of energy.

So I finally crawled out of bed. By this time it was usually about 6.50. a.m. I think it wouldn't be fair to say that I did my morning exercises only from time to time. Though, of course. I know that good health is better than wealth. Nevertheless I preferred taking a shower to merely washing my face and after having a shower I got dressed and brushed my hair. It took me about 25-30 minutes to do my toilet. I want to say that while I was doing all these things my mother was making breakfast. I was in a habit of having only a light breakfast. A cup of tea, some ham or cheese sandwiches were enough for me to be full. As a rule while having my breakfast I listened to a piece of good music on the radio. After breakfast I snatched my school bag. Frankly speaking I found my habit of packing the bag in the morning quite irritating, because I always left something important at home, but I couldn't make myself do it in the evening. And then I rushed for lyceum. Unfortunately I live far from the lyceum. It took me about forty minutes to get there, that's why I was not lucky to sleep a bit longer than pupils who lived near it.

Frankly speaking sometimes my mood depended on what classes I had. On some days lessons flashed by very quickly, especially if they were the humanities, which I liked most, but they were dragging more slowly if I had such sciences like Physics, Chemistry or Math and especially when we had to write tests in them. Wednesday was the hardest day for me; I stayed in lyceum longer than usual because we had an additional lesson in the Kazakh language. I should say that I usually enjoyed hours at lyceum if I was up-to-date with my school work, because I hated the feeling of being left behind with anything. In general I enjoyed lyceum hours because they were instructive and interesting besides I liked lyceum because of the number of friends I had there, but I didn't let my private life interfere with my school work. In common I found life at lyceum bright and absorbing. Our classes started at 8.20 instead of 8.00 as they do in most schools. Usually we had 7 lessons a day. Every lesson lasted 45 minutes, as in a common school, but our breaks were too short, that's why our freedom lasted only 5 or 10 minutes. But we were lucky to have a large break in the middle of the day which lasted 45 minutes. During this break we went to the canteen, and if there was nothing tasty and edible in it, we visited the nearest shop to buy something, for example, sweets or rolls and then did almost everything we wanted. As life is given us only once I try to live it in the best and useful way. So I usually spent the rest of time reading various interesting books or magazines or doing special exercises useful for brain, for example. I could solve puzzles. When I didn't manage to do all my homework at home the large break was mainly the time when I had an opportunity to finish it.

At 3 o'clock when my classes were over I stayed at lyceum to play volleyball or to do some crafts. Our lyceum administration arranged several kinds of extra-class activities like concerts, debate clubs and sports competitions. Honestly I wasn't their active participant, but I took part in them from time to time. Frequently I was back home later than 5 o'clock. On my way home I went to the baker's to buy some white and brown bread, biscuits and cakes.

In the evenings I was busy doing my homework. There were subjects which required a lot of homework to be done and I usually spent most of my time on them. The English language, as it was my main subject, took me no less than three hours to be done. Kazakh and Russian literatures took me a lot of time as well as I should read a lot, wrote different compositions and thought over various problems of our life. These subjects had never seemed easy to me. When late evening came and I had some free time left, which happened very seldom, I went for a walk with my friends. But I rarely sat in front of the TV set, as I prefer meeting friends to merely watching TV. Besides I'm keen on music. Listening to music makes me feel relaxed and calm. Sometimes it even helped me to do my homework. I was in the habit of doing two things together, for instance, listening to music and at the same time reading a book or writing a composition. I don't know why but music didn't prevent me from productive work and didn't draw my attention away. On the contrary it helped me. Here I should say that there were not many household chores that I did in my final year as my parents understood that I was preparing for entering the university and they tried to set me free from spending my precious time on anything else but studying. But in spite of it I had little time for rest; I think working hard is the right thing to do if you want to achieve something in life. At about eight o'clock we usually had supper and all our family gathered in the kitchen. I should mention that it was the only time when we could see one another and talk about different things. We shared our joys and sorrows; discussed our plans for the next day. As for my supper it was usually light as I had dinner very late (at 5 or 6 o'clock), that's why I was not hungry when time came to have supper. At about 11 o'clock I usually had a bath and then I went to bed. When I went to bed I often thought about possible careers and dreamt of becoming reach and famous due to an outstanding talent that no one had discovered yet (just like they do in the movies). Then I allowed myself to worry a bit about lyceum, my future, the next day, what I looked like, what people thought about me and what I could do to change the way people thought about me. I usually fell asleep at midnight.