You’re the one and only light, Ever circling, pure and bright. Like a song that feels just right— Mother, Mother, dearest light!
Kindness lives inside your soul, Your bright smile can make us whole. You are beauty’s purest role— Mother, Mother, heart and soul!
May your years become a tale, Stand through life, strong without fail. May your name in love prevail— Mother, Mother, without veil!
May your love not fade away, May your name forever stay. Let no mother feel dismay— Mother, Mother, every day!
Are You Truly Happy with Wealth?
Your proud stance and graceful frame, Bring the hearts that know you flame. But parents bore your life and name— Are you truly happy with wealth?
You now look down on the poor, For money’s sake, you ask for more. But don’t forget your inner core— Are you truly happy with wealth?
Your home’s a palace, they declare, And call you “rich,” with loving care. But charm and grace are rarely there— Are you truly happy with wealth?
You built a fortune, grand and wide, You see the people, but with pride. Your conscience now you try to hide— Are you truly happy with wealth?
Shoxrukh Fayzulla o‘g‘li Dusmatov lives in Gurlan district of Khorezm region. He was born on October 23, 2003, in Gurlan. He graduated from Secondary School No. 2 in Gurlan district. Currently, he is a student at the Urgench branch of Tashkent Medical Academy.
The sound of people trying their best to live in this harsh society
I thought i wasn’t getting much sleep these days
These people don’t sleep at all
I lay in my bed
My body devoured
I lay there staring up in the ceiling
I think to myself
It must be freezing cold outside
How can those people have the motivation to go out at this time
I feel a chill down my spine
Somethings not right but i don’t know what
I think eating a snack would solve the problem
I stand up and go look for some food
I sit down with all the food i scavenged
A tuna can, some leftover chicken and some ramen
Todays hunt was successful i thought
I will make it my mission to finish this as fast as i can
I dig in quickly
I eat til there is nothing left
except the last chicken leg
After this i can finally go to bed with a full stomach
I pick it up
And I..
Beep beep beep…
wake up
Injury to insult
The only time i insult someone is when
I get insulted that’s why you should
Add injury to an insult
You have to stand up for yourself
When you insult them
Make sure to injure them as well
And don’t just minorly injure them
Permanently damage them
So they don’t have to come to school
So that they don’t have to all this nasty homework
I wish I don’t have to come to school anyways
I’m not sure about you
But personally i was taught to never take any disrespect from anyone
Me personally i would have to add injury to insult
School
I wish that it ended. She keeps talking and talking. I’m not listening, who is? Nobody listening there, all sleeping. School is such a waste.
I wish that time stopped. I never thought it was fun. Schools should host more parties. We stayed there until 9. It ended in a flash.
I wish that he didn’t. Throwing that beautiful ramen away. I’m inside the school starving. While he wastes that ramen. My poor beautiful delicious ramen.
Andrew Ban is a student attending an International School in South Korea. He loves writing in his free time, and his other hobbies include cross country and bike riding. He was recently published in Inlandia: A Literary Journal, Dunes Review, The Elevation Review, Rigorous and Mortal Magazine.
Eugene Han is a student at an international school in South Korea. His artwork explores themes of identity, culture, and nature, often blending abstract and representational elements. Through vibrant colors and textured layers, he aims to capture both the complexity and simplicity of the human experience. Eugene has been honing their artistic skills from a young age and is passionate about sharing their vision with a global audience.
I graduated from school with excellent grades. Currently, I am a 3rd year student at Termez University of Economics and Service. I have more than 10 articles. I am the owner of the “Rector’s Scholarship” for the 2024-2025 academic year. I have participated in various competitions. In January, I actively participated in Shokhida Yusupova’s “Shine with Shokhida” 5-day marathon and was awarded a certificate. In June, I went on a trip to Indonesia with our University. On July 27, I was awarded a certificate for my successful participation in the master class on the topic “Empower, Educate, Elevate!” organized on the occasion of the 3rd anniversary of the Shine Girls’ Academy.
“My philosophy of life or what speech do you see yourself giving in 10 years?”
Abstract: Dreams, my schedule, my expenses, my family, me in 10 years.
People have endless dreams and aspirations, and people live striving for their dreams. Just like everyone has their own dreams, one of my dreams is to travel to many countries, walk along the seashore, create my own small library, become an accomplished expert in my profession, have my own home and car, have my favorite wardrobe and be with my loved ones. Philosophy of life is a philosophical movement that studies and interprets the problems of the meaning, purpose, and value of life. Life is an integral whole that is primarily reality, and then divided into spirituality and materiality, consciousness and being.
Life is the main concept of the Philosophy of Life. The Philosophy of Life seeks to understand the essence of life in itself. It glorifies feelings and instincts, criticizes and denies reason. According to supporters of the Philosophy of Life, the concept of life is complex, multifaceted, and does not have its own clear interpretation. Creativity, especially artistic creativity, is extremely important for the Philosophy of Life, it is even life itself. At this point, the Philosophy of Life approaches non-rational intuitionism, its theory of knowledge. For example, the fact that the dynamics of life, the individual nature of a thing-event cannot be expressed in general concepts, but can be understood directly, through intuition, is characteristic of both trends.
The Philosophy of Life sees a sharp difference in the approach of science and philosophy to the world. Science seeks to master and subjugate the world, while philosophy is characterized by observation, and in this feature it is close to art. Reason is by its nature disconnected from life; intellectual knowledge and the science based on it can comprehend not things, but only the relationships between things. Rational knowledge is aimed at satisfying purely practical interests, at useful expediency. Non-intellectual, intuitive, figurative-symbolic methods of comprehending life are opposed to scientific knowledge. A work of art, especially poetry and music, is a means of understanding and relatively accurately expressing life. Life is interesting, it tests us all with various tests and rewards. The true essence of our life is to do good and strive for enlightenment.
The ideas of humanism have been around for centuries is being promoted, examples of this are countless like raindrops. Recently, I witnessed an incident, a mother who was walking her child on the street nervously looked at a special trans worker on the street and said to her child: “If you don’t get an education and study well, your life will be miserable like that trans worker.” Hearing this, I had to join their conversation, “Excuse me, if your child gets a good education, he will help those in such professions, he will take society out of the stream of poverty, after all, they say that education is a vaccine against ignorance,” I ended my speech by saying. Today we have changed, today our souls have been renewed, and our bodies are free like clouds, but our hearts are still alone in the darkness of darkness.
Most parents themselves do not instill universal human values in their children from childhood, and in the genetics of the future, the level of contempt for lower-class people, materialism, and an empathetic approach will continue to expand in regressive generations. Education is a gem that is instilled not by control, but by example. Many people ask me, “What is your biggest dream?” Do you have any dreams or goals? Yes, they do. Some want to live in high-rise buildings and buy expensive cars, some strive for career advancement, and still others are in the process of renewing their tattered clothes, getting rid of the scourge of helplessness, and finding food for today. Today, we are becoming creatures of the world of egoism. The phrase “I” is scattered like small fish swimming in the ocean. Don’t rush, I know the thought that came to your mind while reading me, this life is given only once, people should live only for themselves, life is a place of pleasure, not a time to think about others.
A person will never stop dreaming as long as they live. For this, you need to work and ask God and have a little patience. Nowadays, many people do not know how to be grateful. They always complain, “I can’t do it, I don’t have money, and so on.” What does a person look like if he doesn’t work or try? I always like to be in motion and work on myself. I’m already moving for my future. If I don’t work now, it may be too late. This has been discussed in many books. Nowadays, I write down my daily schedule for myself. I hate waking up at different times every day. This is one of my principles. I always wake up at 6 o’clock. Then I spend 30 minutes on some work. After having a family breakfast, I go to my preparatory courses. After my preparatory course, I come home, have lunch, and then head to the university. My classes start at 1:00 PM, and
It ends at 17:30. After class, my classmates and I go to a cafe and chat a little before heading home. When I get home, I start cooking dinner and prepare for my university and course lessons. After that, we have a family dinner, we chat a little and have dessert. I think this is a great feeling for me. My expenses, my current source of income is my parents, and I get money from them for all my expenses. My expenses are not very high.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that in 2025, I achieved a lot. In April 2025, I became the owner of the “Rector’s Scholarship”. This was great news for me. Of course, it was not easy to achieve this, but I did it. After that, I was awarded a certificate for my successful participation in the “Shine with Shokhida” 100-day project of Shokhida Yusupova, a famous woman and girl. This was another dream of mine. I also write articles and currently have more than 10 articles. A person should never stop. My motto in life is “Don’t stop”.
To’raqulova Pokiza Sanjarovna was born in 2006 in the city of Termez, Surkhandarya region.
The plot for a potential story can sweep into my consciousness without me intentionally trying to manufacture one. For example, my latest protagonist, Laura Styversant, appeared in a vivid dream I had one night. I awoke, grabbed pen and paper, and started to outline the story based on my dream.
The protagonist I started to sculpt in my head, was a sassy, salty, routinely cynical 51-year-old San Francisco Bay area female private investigator (P.I.) who had everything go wrong in the last year, including a bad car accident which resulted in a broken arm, a fractured ankle, and two cracked ribs. After a slow four-month recovery period she gets back into the P.I. game with a ritzy senior corporate executive male client, Daniel Sarnoff. It’s a challenging case for Laura. Her mission is to locate the man’s ex-wife, who suddenly disappeared, and find out what she did with the stacks and stacks of money, a huge nest egg they hid together inside the master bedroom wall of their Long Island house.
Although Laura, my character, is physically back on her feet from injuries, there are complications in this new case, and her anxiety is off the charts. The client, Daniel Sarnoff, has gone missing. He doesn’t answer her calls. He’s not at home where he’s lived for twenty years. His mail is piling up. And he’s nowhere to be found. Laura thinks that he’s likely intentionally ghosting her. Or is it something else? He’s already paid her a hefty “up front” fee up but Laura despises unfinished business and so, she becomes obsessed with finding him.
Remember, this all came from a dream I had; one of my treasure chests for surfacing potential plot concepts when I want to start a new project.
In the midst of designing the skeleton of this new story, possibly a novel, I decide to attend a webinar focused on Crafting More Compelling Characters.
The webinar’s presenter opens with posing this question:
“Do you interview your characters?”
She goes on to say, “As a writer, you want to find out everything about your lead character; likes, dislikes, fantasies, fears, joys and more, more, more! The only way to do that is to ASK THE DIRECT QUESTIONS. Just pretend you’re interviewing them across the table. And, go deep.”
My mind swirls as I listen to this wisdom. When I exit the webinar, I immediately list specific interview questions to ask Laura Styversant, the protagonist that I’m creating. I come up with ten questions:
Laura, what motivated you to become a private investigator?
Do you wish you’d chosen a different line of work? As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
You seem cynical about life and a bit sassy, maybe edgy. What happened in your life to shape you this way?
Who is the one famous person you’d like to have dinner with? Anyone – alive or dead? Why does that person appeal to you?
What creeps you out, scares you, makes you nervous?
What would an ideal day for you look like? An ideal location for you anywhere in the world?
What family member do you most admire? Connect with? What is it about them?
What one thing or accomplishment would you like to leave as your legacy?
What secrets do you carry from childhood? high school? Your twenties? Something you don’t want anybody to know.
When did you have your first kiss? What was the experience like?
This list was easy to create because I was totally curious as to how Laura would respond.
These questions helped me get “inside” Laura’s head, and that is exactly where I wanted to be.
Visit Linda S. Gunther’s website to read 52 weeks of her WRITE-BYTES BLOG which features Tips for Writers of All Levels and Genres.
Linda S. Gunther is the author of six published suspense novels: Ten Steps from the Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost in the Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach, and Death is a Great Disguiser. Her memoir titled A Bronx Girl (growing up in the Bronx in the 1970’s) was released in 2024. Her short stories and book reviews have been published in a variety of literary journals across the world. Linda’s short plays, Listen While You Work, Divided We Stand, and Waiting for Magic are being produced and performed in 2025 at theaters located in New York, Napa Valley, CA and in the Monterey Bay area in Northern California.
