Jerrice J Baptiste is an artist, poet, educator and author of nine books, Her watercolor drawings on paper have been accepted or forthcoming in MER, Synchronized Chaos, Saugerties Shout Out, Las Laguna Art Gallery exhibit in California, Spirit Fire Review, Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine. Jerrice has presented her art work at The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, in June 2025. She’s been featured as a solo artist at the Cairo Public Library in Cairo NY, in an art exhibit at The Mountaintop Library in Tannersville NY in August-September 2025, and also a solo Exotic Birds Collection on January-February 2026 at Mountain Top Library, She participated in an art show called Shout Out Saugerties, NY. Her most recent poetry book Coral in The Diaspora is published by Abode Press (August 2024). She is well published in Artemis Journal, The Yale Review, Mantis and hundreds of others. Jerrice’s collaborative songwriting and poems are featured on the Grammy nominated album: Many Hands Family Music for Haiti. She teaches Authentic Poetry workshops in The Catskills, NY.
I would like to start my speech with a question. Why are there more poor people than rich people? Why are there more unsuccessful people than successful ones? Why are there more unhappy people than happy ones? Have you ever thought about it? Why do children who struggle immensely and go hungry for days often become the most generous and crisis-resistant rich people in the future, while the children of wealthy parents who have every condition and every wish granted either fail to become rich, or if they do, become miserly, greedy, and see their wealth go bankrupt in a very short time?
MAIN BODY Imagine a newborn baby; the heart and mind of a newborn baby are like a blank sheet of paper. How to decorate it depends on the baby’s parents. There is at least one small child in each of your homes. Have you ever watched them? Even if there is a big problem or many shortcomings at home, that little child continues to play happily. They are only interested in being happy, playing, and laughing, right? But we adults, whenever we have a problem, we keep brooding over it, yet we never think about why that problem was given to us or what good things lie behind it. Let’s greet those problems with a smile, just like children do.
Have you ever tested what children do when their toys get lost? Why am I saying this? Toys are a part of children’s lives, just like the problems that trouble us. But when their toy is lost, they search for it, cry, and if they still cannot find it, they move on and make themselves happy by playing with other things. We adults cannot do that.
Actually, the fault does not lie with us, but with our parents who taught us to live this way—though I do not mean to blame them with this. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I mean that we should not teach such a lifestyle to newborns. When a problem comes to our children, we must teach them to face it with a smile, and when defeat comes, to view it not as a defeat, but as a tool that makes us even stronger.
Instead of whispering “you cannot do it” into their minds, we should actually instill the words “you are capable of anything.” We must not kill the innocence of their childhood, but let them grow and thrive. When problems arise, we must teach them not to feel distressed, but how to emerge stronger from that problem. The appearance of a problem in your life does not mean plunging into sorrow and grief.
We must teach them to accept it as meaning “you are strong, do not stop striving.” It is not all about the problem itself, but how we accept it and how we act. I read in a book recently about its main character, an elderly person who taught at a large university. He contracted an illness that made it difficult for him to walk, causing him to fall down while walking. Yet, even if it meant relying on a cane, he would go for walks, and on his way out, he attended swimming every day. Even when the illness worsened to the point where he could no longer take off his clothes and needed a servant to help, he would still go swimming, and alongside these hardships, he never stopped teaching at the university. Perhaps you think he was forced to do so—no, he was not forced, but he did it because he refused to stay inactive in one place and live in sorrow, feeling depressed just because he was sick.
CONCLUSION The main purpose and core message of my words is that our unending problems, our inability to become rich despite trying, our illnesses—in short, all kinds of problems—are perceived as if they will never pass or go away.
How our lives turn out depends on ourselves and how we accept our lives. In reality, we ourselves are to blame for all our problems
My head is like a ribbon thrown under a train that you can’t stop; that you don’t want to stop. My head: like a ribbon of worm in an apple pie. My head: destroy this pain again and for the first time (like water washing time from hair). Destroy this head: abnormal, sick, vile, purple-marbled, and then winter and snow will begin. Snow always holds a secret: destroy this snow, it carries neither secrets nor questions, trains are like lame swallows, rails are like inflorescences of homeless and suicides peoples hanging from the trees. This head carries no secrets, no questions. Destroy this head: the husks will scatter across meadows and deserts, across bird meadows and across human deserts. Cut off the dead branches, pluck the faded flowers, take out the trash, throw your head under the train.
And then I’ll die. And then you’ll die inside my head.
Dr. Arnold Schopp, DVM, glanced at the caller ID; he didn’t recognize the number. The time was 5am. Picking up his landline, he said, “Hello?”
“Oh! Hi! My name’s Livy. You don’t know me, but I got your number from the men’s washroom at The Stagger Inn, the tavern in the Central West End?”
Arnold blinked. He’d never heard of the place. Was this a crank call? he wondered.
“Can I help you?” he asked cautiously.
“Well, I’m a porter at the tavern during the mornings, before they open. I’m working my way through nursing school, Arnie; Class of ’96! Yay! Is it alright if I call you Arnie?”
Arnold shrugged, but his caller couldn’t see it, so he said, “Okay.”
“I’m having some trouble with my hand,” Livy went on. “And I thought maybe you could help.”
Arnold shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, where I found your name and number, underneath it said, “For a Good Hand Job, call Arnie, at…” and she read off his phone number. “Are you a doctor or something, Arnie?”
“Well, no,” he said. “I am a veterinarian, however.” He was almost sure he wasn’t being pranked. “What happened to your hand?” he asked.
“I stuck it in the wringer on the mop bucket when I was mopping the floor and then wrung it out. It hurts,” she added.
Arnold went on to tell his new friend how to treat the injury, with ice and later with heat and so on.
“Thanks so much, Arnie,” said Livy with a little squeal.
“How are you doing in nursing school?” he asked.
“I’m just ending my first year,” she replied. “I’m doin’ real good. Thanks for asking.”
It occurred to Arnold that Livy hadn’t many places to turn when she encountered the vicissitudes of life, so he told her, “It’s the very least I can do, Livy. I’ve got to go for now, but you’ve got my number. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Okay,” she said with a gulp.
They disconnected.
_____
Arnold lifted the receiver of the landline in his all-night animal clinic and said, “Hello?”
“Arnie?” asked a young, shrill female voice. “It’s Livy.”
“Hi, Livy,” said Arnold, smiling. “What’s going on?”
“Ooh, I smashed my head,” she lamented, her voice revealing a tremor of angst. “I was taking the laundry out of my washing machine and the lid closed on my little peanut head!”
“Are you alright?” asked Arnold with concern.
“No!” she said loudly. “It hurts. I think I might have a concussion.”
Arnold frowned into the phone. He knew it was unlikely that the light-weight lid of a washing machine would do much damage. He told Livy so.
“You don’t care if I die!” she shrieked. “I have a drop of blood on my forehead and I think I might’ve fractured my skull, Arnie.”
Arnold rolled his eyes. “Unlikely,” he suggested.
“I’m thinking of going to urgent care or to the hospital or to Minnesota…” began Livy.
“Minnesota?”
“The Mayo Clinic,” Livy explained. “That have an excellent trauma unit for head injuries, Arnie.” Livy, Arnold remembered, was a student nurse, now in her second year.
“How much blood did you lose?” asked Arnold.
“One or two drops.”
“Do you have a knot or your head or anything?” he asked next. “Do you feel sleepy or dizzy or…”
“No,” said Livy, “but I almost for sure fractured my skull. “The parietal bone, or the zygomatic arch or the…”
“Livy, put some ice on it,” counseled Arnold. “Do you have any insurance yet?” he asked.
“No. And I need a CAT scan and an MRI and a cognitive assessment…”
“Well, if you feel that you must get medical treatment, hospitals can’t turn away anyone who’s deathly ill. Go to St. Elizabeth’s, here in town, and see what they say. Okay?”
“Okay, Arnie,” replied Livy. “Thanks.”
“You bet, Livy. Let me know what they tell you.”
“You’re interested?” she asked with surprise.
“I am,” said Arnold.
“Goody,” she said.
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye.”
They disconnected.
_____
Arnold glanced at his watch and lifted the receiver.
“Arnie,” said Livy, her voice staticky over the line. “I had an accident.”
“What kind of an accident?” asked Arnold.
“I was painting my flower boxes and I got a splinter.”
Arnold envisioned Livy, bringing her middle finger to her lips and sucking on it.
“How big?” he inquired.
” ‘Bout a quarter of an inch. It hurts!” she wailed, holding the finger up in Arnold’s mind’s eye for his inspection. He shook his head, thought about the spaying and neutering operations he had pending at the clinic. “Do you think I need a tetanus shot?” she asked.
“When did you have your last one?” Arnold asked her.
“Six months ago, remember, when I dropped the can of peas on my foot and thought I might’ve broken the third metatarsal or the calcaneus? At the ER they didn’t want to do a full-body scan because I didn’t have any insurance and I wouldn’t leave until they did something. So they gave me a shot.”
Arnold sighed. His young friend was a bit of an alarmist. “I think you only need a tetanus shot every ten years or so…”
“Oh!” said Livy. “That’s right, I remember it from class.”
“I’d just wash the wound with hydrogen peroxide, dress it with merthiolate or iodine and wrap it up. You’ll be fine, Livy,” said Arnold.
“Thanks, Arnie,” said Livy gratefully. “You’re the best!”
The dial tone popped back on.
_____
Arnold, on duty as usual at his animal clinic, picked up the telephone on the second ring. He knew it would be Livy, his irrepressible friend from the college. She called every day at the same time: 5am.
“Hi, Livy, how’s tricks?” he asked, pleased to talk with a friendly voice.
“Hiya, Arnie,” she fairly burst through the line. “I’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” he asked, barely avoiding appending “this time” to the query.
“I’ve been picking weeds out of my garden,” Livy explained. “And my fingers are cramped. I think I might have myasthenia gravis or something. Maybe Parkinson’s.”
Arnold rolled his eyes. “Not a chance,” he said.
“Well, I’ve sure got weeds,” she asserted. “What do you think I…”
“Livy,” said Arnold with what patience he could pull together, “you need to start making some decisions on your own. You’re an adult, and you’re old enough,” he said, perhaps more harshly that he’d intended.
“Arnie, did I catch you at a bad time?” Livy asked him.
“Well, kind of. I don’t mind…I like talking to you every day, but sometimes you need to just stand on your own two feet and decide. Do you know what I mean?” he asked, hoping he hadn’t hurt his sensitive young friend’s feelings. She was so easily hurt…
_____
“I met a guy, Arnie,” said Livy one day.
“Where did you meet him?” asked Arnold.
“At a party thrown by one of my friends from school,” she said.
“Is he a nursing student too?” he asked.
“No, he’s a medical student, Arnie. We partied and I got a little bit drunk and later we kissed and made out.”
“Be careful,” cautioned Arnold. “You’ve got your whole life in front of you, Livy.”
He could almost see her nod. “Gotcha. We didn’t do anything I might regret,” she said. “Robert–that’s his name, Robert–asked me out on a regular date tonight.”
“That sounds fine,” said Arnold approvingly. “Is he known among your friends; I mean, does he have a good reputation?”
“Yes,” she said. “All my friends say he has a lot of girlfriends, and none of them turned up dead or anything. He graduates next year,” she said.
“Well, have a good time, Livy.”
“Thanks, Arnie. I’ll talk to you later.”
_____
Arnold didn’t hear from Livy as usual the next morning and he wondered how she was. She usually called every day from work, when she was cleaning the tavern to pay her way through school; she had done so since they met over the telephone more than a year before. Finally, he checked his phone directory and found the last number she’d used. He dialed it up.
It rang and rang but the call went unanswered. Arnold called again several times, until, on the fourth try, after the phone rang endlessly at the other end, she picked up.
“Hello?” said Livy in a whisper.
Arnold frowned into his receiver; Livy sounded so down.
“Livy?” he said.
After a moment, she said, “Hi, Arnie. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Arnold said. “How are you? Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“Livy,” he said, “what have you been doing? Why haven’t you called me?”
“I was only doing what you told me I should do,” replied Livy. “You know, take responsibility for my actions, make decisions, and…” Her voice drifted off.
“Livy, does this have anything to do with Robert?” Arnold asked.
“I went out with Robert,” she said dully. “I trusted him, like you said.”
“Livy,” said Arnold, gripping the receiver fiercely, “what happened.”
“Robert took me out, like he said he would,” she replied. Before he could inquire further, Livy whispered, “Robert raped me, Arnie.”
Arnold’s blood ran cold. He listened intently, but Livy said no more, until finally, she murmured, “He hurt me, Arnie.”
“Livy,” said Arnold, “I am so sorry.”
“I know, Arnie. Because you’re my friend. I know you don’t always have time for me and I need to stand on my own two feet and…”
Arnold listened and thought he could hear Livy softly weeping.
“…it was my own fault anyway,” she continued. “I should’ve known better than to go back to the home of someone I only just met. I…I’d never made love before, and I didn’t know what to do when he told me to take off my clothes…”
“Livy, it is not your fault,” said Arnold firmly.
“If I’d just done what he said, then he wouldn’t have hurt me,” she said.
“A woman makes decisions her whole life, Livy, and she doesn’t always make the right ones. But, whether you said yes or not, it was rape. He made the decision for you, Livy. Rape is not about a man’s needs or even what he says he wants. It’s about domination and control and inflicting humiliation on his weaker victim. Do you understand me, dear?”
“Yes, Arnie,” replied Livy. She sounded to Arnold as though she were regaining some of her composure. Which gave him heart.
“So,” she said, “it wasn’t my fault…?”
“That’s right, Livy. Where are you now? Are you at home?”
“I’m in a little diner in the Central West End, near the tavern I clean,” said Livy.
“Why didn’t you call earlier?” he asked.
“I was…ashamed,” she admitted.
“Livy, have you received medical attention? Have you seen a professional?”
“No, Arnie.”
“Give me the address,” he told her. She did. “I’ll be there in 15 minutes, Livy, and we’ll get you the help that you need.”
“You mean you’re coming for me now?”she asked in a small voice.
“Right now,” he said.
“Then we’ll finally get to meet face to face, Arnie. Goody.”
Minutes later, Arnold pulled his animal hospital vehicle into the parking lot of the small diner described by Livy over the phone. He glanced at his watch: it was a quarter past 6am. He’d never met his friend, but knew she was 20 years old. The place was half-filled, but he discerned Libby almost by instinct.
A smallish, thin woman with light brown hair, she occupied a booth near the end of the cafe. She looked up at him as he took a seat opposite her. They sat and looked at one another for an impossibly long moment, before Livy said, in a voice that Arnold recognized instantly, “You came.”
A waitress materialized as if by magic and Arnold asked Livy if she wanted anything. There was a half-drunk cup of coffee before her, with fully a half dozen opened Splenda packages lying in disarray in her saucer. She shook her head no.
Arnold insisted she have something to eat, so she ordered French toast. He ordered a coffee. They spoke in low, confidential voices until their order arrived. Livy’s appetite appeared to be piqued by the aromatic French toast and she dug in, smothering the dish with butter and warmed maple syrup.
As she ate, Arnold told her what would happen next.
“I’ll take you to the emergency room,” he said, “and they’ll check you out. They have a rape crisis unit on duty there, 24/7.”
“What will they do?” Livy asked. He told her.
“They are associated with law enforcement, Livy,” he said. At her stricken look, he assured her that she was not in trouble, but rather Robert. “Forcible rape is a felony, Livy,” he told her gently but firmly. “No one can make you cooperate with them, but think of all the other young women and girls that Robert might inflict himself on in the years to come.”
That sealed it. She agreed to talk to the rape counselor and the cops.
“I feel like I failed you, Livy,” said Arnold contritely, reaching across the table and touching his friend for the very first time. It was warm where they touched.
“You’ve done so much for me, Arnie,” said Livy in a stronger voice. “And you’re still doing it. No one has ever been my friend before. Not like you.”
Arnold felt his heart break. “I love you, Livy. You are my very good friend.”
“You’ve done so much, Arnie,” said Livy again. “Could I ask you to do me one more thing?”
“Of course.”
“Come around to my side and give me a hug, alright?”
Without another word, Arnold rose from his seat, came around and sat next to Livy and gave her a tremendous hug.
COMPATIBILITY OF TRADITIONAL VALUES AND MODERN DEVELOPMENT
ANNOTATION
This article discusses the role of Uzbek girls in society, the preservation of national values, and the use of modern education and opportunities. Today, it is important for girls to gain knowledge, acquire a profession, learn modern technologies, and actively participate in public life. The combination of national values and modern knowledge serves to educate well-rounded, independently thinking, and spiritually-minded young people. The article also analyzes the role of family, education, and society in the upbringing of girls.
Keywords: Uzbek girls, national values, education, upbringing, youth, modernity, spirituality, profession.
ENTRANCE
Uzbek girls have always been valued for their virtues such as decency, modesty, kindness, and respect for elders. Today, many opportunities are being created for them to receive quality education, acquire a profession, and demonstrate their talents. Therefore, acquiring modern knowledge while preserving national values is one of the urgent issues.
LITERATURE ANALYSIS AND METHODS
In studying the topic, scientific and analytical sources on education, youth and girls’ development were studied. The research used methods of analysis, comparison and generalization. Based on the sources, the interrelationship of national values and modern education was examined.
RESULTS
The analysis revealed that girls’ education expands their future opportunities. An educated girl consciously chooses her profession, thinks independently, and can contribute to the development of society. At the same time, it is also important to maintain national qualities such as respect for parents, decency, honesty, and kindness.
DISCUSSION
National values and modernity are not contradictory concepts. A girl can preserve her nationality while acquiring modern knowledge and technologies. Support from family and educational institutions is of great importance in this.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Uzbek girls are an important and promising segment of society. Their education, spirituality, and growing up in modern professions are important for the future of the country. A girl who preserves national values and acquires modern knowledge is the creator of the future.
REFERENCES
1. UNICEF. Education in Uzbekistan. UNICEF Uzbekistan.
2. UNICEF. Situation Analysis of Children and Adolescents in Uzbekistan. 2024.
3. UN Women. Leaving No Girl Behind in Education. 2022.
4. UNICEF. Adolescent Girls: The Investment Case.
Jumayeva Gulasal was born on July 8, 2010 in the Shofirkan district of the Bukhara region of the Republic of Uzbekistan. She is currently studying in the 10th grade of a secondary school. She aims to become a primary school teacher in the future.
