«The future begins today», and this wisdom carries a deep meaning. The goals a person sets today determine the results they achieve tomorrow. I am also one of the young people who have set a great goal for their future. I have recently successfully completed the 9th grade at School No.16 “ JASORAT” in Kasbi district, Kashkadarya region, and I am stepping forward into the 10th grade with confidence. During this important period of my life, I have started thinking more seriously about my future and the path I want to follow. I believe that every person has a moment or an encounter that changes the way they see life. I experienced such a moment as well.
A foreign teacher who came to our school to teach us became one of the main reasons why my interest in studying abroad grew stronger. This teacher not only shared knowledge about their subject but also introduced us to their country’s education system, culture, traditions and way of thinking. Through their lessons, I realized that the true purpose of education is not only to receive good grades, but also to learn how to think independently, explore new ideas, create innovations, and become connected with the world. From that moment, studying abroad became one of my greatest dreams and goals.
The people who have given me the greatest support on this journey are my parents. When I shared my dream of studying abroad with them, they welcomed my idea, believe in me, and encouraged me to work hard. I deeply understand that the trust and support of parents are among the greatest sources of strength for a child. Their prayers and encouragement motivate me to move forward toward my goals every day.
Today, studying abroad is not only an opportunity for the children of wealthy families, as some people may think. If a person has a thirst for knowledge, dedication, and determination, may universities around the world can open their doors to them. Various scholarships, grants and international education programs are helping thousands of young people achieve their dreams. However, to take advantage of these opportunities, it is necessary to improve English exams such as IELTS and SAT, study school subjects deeply, and continuously work on personal development.
There are many advantages to studying abroad. First of all, students have the opportunity to study with modern laboratories, experienced professors, and advanced educational methods. They can combine theoretical knowledge with practical experience. By studying together with students from different countries, they can discover new cultures, lifestyles, and prespectives. This experience broadens their worldview, helps them enhance foreign language skills, and allows them to build international friendships.
Another important benefit of studying abroad is that it prepares a person for independent life. Managing time effectively, taking responsibility, solves issues freely, and adapting to different environments are valuable qualities that develop through such experiences. These skills become a strong foundation for future success.
Many people think that entering a foreign university is extremely difficult. However, the hardest step is often the first one – starting!. Reading one page of a book today, learning a new English word, or solving one mathematical problems may seem like a small achievement. But these small steps can lead you towards the world’s most prestigious universities in the future. Great achievements always begin with small actions.
I am also following this path today. I am sorting out improving my English skills and preparing to achieve international certificates such as IELTS, SAT, and other qualifications. I know that many challenges are waiting ahead, but I believe that every challenges will bring me closer to my goal. I am not working only for myself, but also to justify my family’s trust, appreciate the efforts of my teachers, and contribute to the development of my homeland in the future.
Dear friends and fellow students! If you also dream of studying abroad, do not postpone your dreams. Start working from TODAY. Learn languages, read books, participate in competitions, and never stop searching for new knowledge. Believe in yourself despite nobody do not believe to you. Because success do not come overnight, but daily efforts always bring results.
As the saying goes, «Knowledge is the greatest wealth that elevates a person». Dreams become reality only in the hands of those who believe in them and continue working toward them. I want to be one of those people. I strongly believe that my efforts today will become the foundation of my achievements tomorrow, and one day I will study at one of the world’s leading universities and use the knowledge and experience I gain to make a contribution to the progress of my homeland.
Travis Park is a poet from Indiana whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Modern Haiku, Presence, Ribbons, Wales Haiku Journal, Leaf Journal, Haikuniverse, and elsewhere.
Hades
From 4 AM on,
We’d sweat, underpaid,
in an understaffed
bakery.
He was the bread guy.
I made the pastries.
To pass time,
we’d talk
about bosses,
who were anything but
banter on news
between passing utensils.
Reaching a ten-pound whisk
across the table
he said,
“Here’s a whip for your icining.”
Until then, he had been
describing coverage
of an earthquake
“Down in Hades.”
We spoke in yells.
Tiled walls shook
with eighty-quart mixers.
The stereo crackled,
“…She fuck me like she Haitian…”
What odds?
I said I wonder
what Haitian women fuck like.
He lied that maybe he’d tell me
after his family
trip to Dominican, smiling,
“It’s right next door.”
Since I quit,
he works the big whip
The bosses made him
the pastry guy.
Cowboy Kindred
He was standing outside the liquor store, looking lost
in time. A nod to a bygone era that left, like a
one-night stand he thought was the one
but snuck off sometime before morning.
The shaking head and agape mouth sold me.
He looked to be in his mid-fifties
in cowboy boots, ripped jeans, a tank top,
and aviators, with long bleached curls
beneath a straw Corona hat.
His steroidal arms, tanned and hairy up the bicep,
bore tattoos I can’t remember. He had a 1980s
pro-wrestler-like quality, like Dog the Bounty Hunter,
in the clothes of Kenny Chesney.
As I approached the entrance, an electric CUV
whirred past us. Though there were others,
he looked at me, someone to whom he sensed
he could speak. He said:
“I remember when cars sounded like cars.
These fucking things sound like spaceships.”
To drive the point home, he trilled his lips,
bbbrrrrr, then waved both arms in defeat.
I laughed. He shook his head humorlessly.
I wonder if he’s composing a poem now
about a hard-luck case whose expression
read lost, like a guy who’d missed his stop,
avoiding sincerity in a liquor store parking lot.
Song of Domesticity
My neighbour’s window plays
the clatter of stacked plates,
an accordion of forks
chiming into place.
I don’t know if it’s music
preceding a quiet evening
or silence that succeeds
the absence of ketchup.
It’s thirty degrees.
If the dog in the driveway’s
chain could reach the shade
of my neighbour’s lifted pickup
he could sleep with the filthy,
silhouetted women, who flap
beneath Browning bumper stickers,
never breathing a word.
Peg Ride
For my last dance with ego,
I’ll wish not to be dispatched
to the back of a Chrysler
mini-van hearse, ferried by some
Charon in budget coattails
listening to car salesmen—
when he breaks from humming
along to exhausted CanCon
that predates and outlasts me,
while dreaming of a used Chevy—
unmindful of the dead guy’s
peg ride to oblivion.
16
I’ve committed to her body
as an archaeologist commits to a crypt
crawling through his fantasy
eyes rounded, fascinated by the study
or as an old-world tribesman’s tattooed face
marks idolatry, obsession,
a commitment to her sovereignty;
like the letters on my cheek.
I’ve heard colleagues’ repudiations—
bitter, lonesome men, cynical
as their tropes are predictable:
One pussy; the ol’ ball ‘n’ chain…
I once penetrated her with a bottle of Spumante
that tasted sweeter than any Champagne
that same year we had sex on the train
passing scenic blurs in New Brunswick or Quebec
Those short, counting years tarnished dark
as Petite Sirah. I savour her scent,
swirl, our long finish. I’d quaff
a chalice of her plasma, both hands cupped.
Now, for the first time, I feel doubt—
or grief for my dead self—
hearing sometime this year,
she wants to break our old record.
My Bones
What I felt in my bones
is dead.
Praise my fickle bones!
With a turnover rate
of ten years.
Farewell to certainties
I’ll soon forget.
Make way, old bones!
En garde!
I sense a new revelation.
When I reached out to Sacks & Co., the publicity firm representing Philip Glass, I expected a simple professional interaction—either an interview or a polite decline. What arrived instead was a message from Krista Williams whose phrasing carried the unmistakable signature of a Glassian motif: a short, categorical phrase repeated with such structural finality that it resembled a musical cell rather than a piece of administrative communication. The refusal was not framed as temporal or conditional. It was delivered as a pure statement of closure, a cadence without resolution, a door shut with the kind of procedural certainty Glass often assigns to his arpeggiated figures.
“Mr. Glass is not doing interviews.” Period. No caveat. No wiggle-room.
As someone who has spent decades in Glass’s broader ecosystem—through long‑standing Vedanta Society involvement, through writing shaped by the avant‑garde lineage he helped define, through editorial and publishing work that often intersects with minimalist aesthetics—I recognized the pattern immediately. The initial refusal wasn’t simply a refusal; it was a phrase. It had contour. It had rhythmic insistence. It had the timbre of a line repeated until its meaning becomes structural rather than semantic. She had both gatekept me out of interviewing him as well as indicated in clear, unmistakable terms that he is not doing interviews. You don’t require a terminal degree in English to recognize the finality of that sentence. But I do, and it closes the gate permanently; not just for me, for everyone.
I responded with a dry, musicologically framed note acknowledging the decision and pointing out that the redundancy in the phrasing functioned as a kind of meta‑commentary on Glass’s own aesthetic. The exchange had already begun to behave like a piece of music: a motif introduced, repeated, and left to resonate.
A few minutes later, Williams replied with a clarification, which directly contradicted her previous statement:
“On background, I meant to say he’s not taking on any interviews currently as it’s not possible with his schedule.”
She then explained that she had not meant to imply permanent unavailability or a “welded‑shut door.”
The contradiction embedded in this new communication between the two messages was not merely semantic; it was musicological. The first message was a closed cadence. The second was an unexpected modulation. The first established a harmonic boundary; the second destabilized it. In Glass’s vocabulary, this was the shift from motif to variation, the subtle alteration that changes the meaning of the phrase without changing its shape.
The irony was that the correction reinforced the joke. The literalism of the reply—the insistence on clarifying a metaphor—demonstrated the very gatekeeping logic the original message had inadvertently performed.
The exchange had become an interview not with Glass, but with the structure surrounding him. The PR apparatus had become the performer; the email thread, the score.
Legacy‑artist PR, when functioning well, behaves like chamber music: each participant aware of the others, each gesture calibrated to the ensemble, each phrase shaped by context. It requires ecosystem awareness. It requires knowing who is inside the lineage, who has long‑standing engagement with the artist’s work, and who operates in adjacent cultural spaces. It requires recognizing that not all correspondents are equal—some are part of the world the artist came from.
In this case, the categorical refusal structurally shut the door on someone already inside the circle, not outside it. That is the professional misstep, and it is not personal. It is simply a failure of musical listening.
Williams did not recognize that she was speaking to a published author, editor, and publisher; someone who runs a magazine and a small press; someone whose work has long intersected with the avant‑garde; someone whose Vedanta Society involvement places him in the same philosophical lineage Glass embraced; someone who writes in the structural vocabulary Glass helped establish. This is not ego. It is ensemble awareness—the basic competency of legacy‑artist PR.
The paradox is that a PR firm representing Philip Glass inadvertently created negative PR for itself by mishandling a lineage‑adjacent correspondent. The exchange illustrates how gatekeeping can become performative: a ritual guarding of a door that may not need guarding, executed without awareness of who is standing on the other side. The representative’s repetition became a minimalist motif. Her correction became a variation. Her literalism became the punchline. The entire exchange became a Glass piece.
None of this is written in hostility. Williams apologized twice, and there was no escalation. But the exchange, taken as a whole, reveals something important about how legacy‑artist PR functions—and how it sometimes fails. Gatekeeping is not inherently wrong. But gatekeeping without context becomes a structural joke. And in this case, the joke was Glassian.
Philip Glass, born in 1937, is one of the most influential composers of the modern era, known for his pioneering work in minimalism, his collaborations across genres, and his lifelong engagement with Eastern philosophy, particularly through the Vedanta Society. His music is built on repetition, micro‑variation, and procedural architecture—structures that have shaped generations of artists.
Alex S. Johnson, the author of this piece, is a writer, editor, and publisher whose work spans fiction, poetry, cultural commentary, and avant‑garde analysis. As founder of Nocturnicorn Books and Darkest Wine Media, he has published numerous writers and produced work deeply informed by minimalist aesthetics, structural analysis, and the cultural ecosystems surrounding artists like Glass. His long‑standing involvement with the Vedanta Society and decades‑long engagement with Glass’s work place him firmly within the composer’s extended artistic lineage.
Sacks & Co., the publicity firm at the center of this exchange, is a respected boutique PR agency specializing in music, film, and cultural figures. Known for representing major legacy artists, the firm handles media relations, publicity campaigns, and artist communications. Their role is to manage access, shape narratives, and maintain the delicate balance between availability and mystique that surrounds artists of Glass’s stature.
Elaine was Tim’s new girlfriend, unofficially, but one would never know it, from the remote way in which they interacted. At first just best buds, they had taken to hanging out together after school, with no romantic overtures. Elaine, however, a new student this year, was determined to correct that trajectory. She began by telling all her friends that the two of them were an item, and that she “had dibs” on Tim. Tim, however, apparently hadn’t gotten the memo, and remained strangely unaffected. The only time he would even touch the girl was when he tickled her. Elaine was perplexed; at sixteen — the same age as Tim — she had had boyfriends before, and none of them behaved as Tim did. He’d never even tried to kiss her! Was there something wrong with her? she wondered. She lifted her arm and sniffed. She was a few pounds overweight, but others told her she was cute, and she’d never had any difficulties before. Could the problem, then, be with him? She wondered: had he ever actually kissed a girl before? Elaine had dated guys at her old high school, in Reller, before her family moved to this school district, earlier this year. She was used to dealing with a faster crowd, but she really liked this guy. She blew out a breath and shook her head in perplexity. She knew that there were boys who’d never kissed a girl before. That was the case with every boy, she rationalized, until they just did it. She would have to teach him to kiss, she decided with a sigh. But, it could be fun.
. . . . .
That evening Elaine and Tim went to see a movie and Elaine placed her arm over Tim’s on the armrest, tried to snuggle a little. Their flesh was hot where they touched
“Oh, sorry,” spluttered Tim, moving his arm. Elaine rolled her eyes.
After the movie, they drifted to Tim’s car. Elaine stood against the driver’s side door and waited. She had a purpose in mind.
“I’d better get you home,” said Tim, trying to reach around the girl. She didn’t move, but eased in close to him and tilted back her pretty head, mouth slightly open. She waited exoectantly. What did this boy need, a road map?
“Why does she keep getting so close?” wondered Tim, still without a clue. In the back of his mind was the notion that she wanted to be kissed, but the idea terrified him. The only females he’d ever kissed were family members and that hadn’t been any fun. But he was interested in making out with Elaine; he just didn’t know how to go about it. Confronted again by the persistent Elaine’s proximity, Tim did what he usually did to relieve the sexual tension: he tickled her. Squealing, she moved aside, but as he unlocked the door, she moved in quickly, wrapped her hands around his neck and planted a kiss on his lips. He seemed shocked, but almost immediately began kissing her back. He was a fast learner, thought Elaine with satisfaction. That was easy, Tim told himself excitedly. These Reller girls, he thought giddily, are hot!
It was a similar experience, weeks later, the first time they had sex. Closeted in Tim’s car, they necked and Tim rapidly circled the bases, but his car was just too darn small to allow love-making. And agan, he was steeped in ignorance; what if he did the wrong thing? By this time, she had trained him in practical use of the tongue. He took to it like a natural. This project was progressing well, thought Elaine. Soon, all Tim wanted to do was make out, and his appetites, like Elaine’s, were proceeding apace. They were groping one another with increasingly sensitive, probing fingers. If only they could glean some privacy.
Once again, it was she who had to act. After considerable frustration and scheming, Elaine enlisted the aid of her older sister, Marsha, who agreed to allow the pair the use of her bedroom in the apartment she shared with two other girls.
“I’ve got a surprise,” Elaine told Tim temptingly one night.
“Another one?” he blurted. Things were progressing so fast that his mind was awhirl. What next, did she want to drop some acid? he wondered bleakly.
“I found us a place,” she said cryptically.
“You mean….” Then he stopped.
“Marsha’s place,” she elaborated. “She and her roommates will be out of the apartment for two hours, on Saturday afternoon.”
Tim only stared at her.
Again, Elaine rolled her eyes. “Don’t you wanna get laid?” she asked bluntly.
The light of anticipation glittered in Tim’s eyes.
Saturday afternoon found the erstwhile lovers sitting on Marsha’s twin bed in the bedroom of her apartment. A new artist, Elton John, was playing on the radio. Elaine smiled seductively, but Tim just sat there like a sack of flour. She leaned in and kissed him passionately. Tim’s pulse and breathing accelerated at once.
“Let’s get undressed,” suggested Elaine in a sultry voice.
Mutely, they began disrobing. Elaine wondered furtively if the diet she’d labored under had borne any fruit. She fretted self-consciously. Tim, on the other hand, unaccountably, worried that he wouldn’t get an erection. Which, naturally, he did.
“Um,” purred Elaine, looking asppreciatively at Tim’s naked physique. Noting her comment, he swaggered a bit.
Finally, they collapsed into one another’s arms on the bed. Tim felt like he had a raging fever.
“Come here, baby,” coaxed Elaine, drawing Tim atop her. Moving as if in a dream, Tim slipped inside his lover and came immediately.
“Oops, sorry, Elaine,” he muttered contritely.
“That’s okay,” murmured Elaine lovingly. “We’ve got lots of time.” And they did.
. . . . .
Dinner at Elaine’s house came about as a matter of course; her parents wanted to check out the young scamp that their perfect daughter was spending so much time with. They had met him, but only briefly, a couple of times when Tim picked her up for a date. The teens had been seeing each other for almost four weeks and their relationship, they thought, had already covered a lot of ground. It had been just three weeks since they first kissed, one week since they’d had sex. Tim sometimes felt like he was just along for the ride. Elaine was talking about buying a lid of pot.
Tim met the father. “When Elaine told me that you never let her pay for anything on your dates,” said the older man, “my opinion of you increased by fifty percent.” Tim smiled happily. “Then again,” continued her father philosophically, “what’s one half of nothing?” He chuckled evilly. Tim’s face fell.
Elaine had two sisters still living at home, both pretty, like her. Tim was fascinated by Sue, just fourteen, but scantily clad in panties and halter top. If his own sister dressed that way, even at home, his parents would clobber her, he thought. Blonde Lois was just a year younger than Elaine, and very sexy indeed. Dinner was a nightmare: Mrs. Foster served everything that Tim hated, but he managed to stuff some of it down his throat, somehow. Interestingly, the family drank wine with their dinner, and that included the children, all underaged. Tim dutifully sipped a glass of red, instantly felt his face balloon with heat. This was his first experience with wine. But, it would not be his last, he decided hedonistically.
“Here, have another glass of wine, Tim,” offered Mona, Elaine’s heavy-set mother, again and again. Tim frowned at her thoughtfully. He wondered if this woman epitomized his girlfriend in thirty years. He shrugged the thought away, drank more wine. George Foster — Elaine’s father — alone didn’t drink wine; he imbibed beer — can aftere can after can of lager.
After the first three glasses of wine, Tim’s appetite began to pick up and he even found himself selecting a second helping of the loathsome butternut squash which had nearly caused him to vomit earlier. Finally, the interminable meal was over and Tim, with six glasses of wine under his belt, fretted that he wasn’t fit to drive. He hiccupped.
“You’ve had a touch too much to drink,” tittered Mona in a drunken voice. “You can stay over; I’ll call your mom, okay, dear?”
Tim nodded. He was having trouble seeing.
A bed was made up for the visitor on the sofa in the living room. Tim collapsed onto the blankets and was almost instantly asleep. According to the clock on the mantle, it was three a.m. when Tim was awakened by a wet feeling on his face. Shaking his head, he withdrew an inch.
“Wha…” he said.
There ensued a high-pitched giggling. Tim opened his eyes and observed several murky shapes drifting through the shadows and doing unspeakable things to his privates. Tim swiftly reached down and removed a small feminine hand, with long, tapered fingers, from his crotch.
“What’re you doing?” he asked in alarm.
“Don’t you have a clue?” asked fourteen-year-old Sue, now completely naked. She giggled again. Another female form — Lois this time — was crawling under the sheets with him.
“What the hell!” declared a familiar but angry voice. Elaine shooed the other girls away, and none-too-gently. “Skanks!” she hissed venomously. The two girls scurried back to their rooms, more laughter trailing in their wake. Tim sat there, stricken, in shock.
“Poor baby,” cooed Elaine, embracing her boyfriend in a much-needed hug, and copping a cheap feel at the same time.
. . . . .
As the school year progressed, Tim and Elaines relationship blossomed; she began murmuring matter-of-factly about marriage.
Yikes! thought Tim. But, the more he thought about, the better it sounded. He was always more comfortable with the familiar. Besides, his famly just loved Elaine — as did Tim. And he enjoyed having a girlfriend, and being a part of something. But, one day, as Tim waited in his car for Elaine after class, she stood him up. He began to have conniptions. She’d never done this before, and his imagination ran wild; what tragedy might have befallen his one true love? Padding steathily back through the school corridors in search of his girlfriend, Tim abruptly stopped and slunk back around behind the corner. It was Elaine, and she was talking to the school lothario, a jock, the one all the girls called “Mandingo.” They seemed very chummy, Tim thought with annoyance. The girls all talked about Mandingo as a hulking, seething sexual animal. Everyone wanted him, he’d heard. Did Elaine?” he wondered. Mandingo would know how to kiss a girl, he’d know how to get what he wanted. Tim’s cheeks burned, and he hurried back to his car and drove away. For the first time, he began to have doubts about Elaine and the future of their relationship. Tim had talked to a boy who knew the Foster family from when the kids attended their old school, and he’d said that all the Foster girls were “progressive.” Tim had passed this off as envy, but now he reconsidered. His experience at dinner — and afterward — certainly stood out in his mind. Tim filed this all away in the back of his mind.
In trig class the next day, Debbie Hinson, who was easily the homeliest girl in the junior class, had the temerity to ask Tim to the prom. She even offered to pay for his tux and buy the tickets for the after-prom. She seemed rather desperate, thought Tim. He turned her down as gently as possible, but he couldn’t help but smirk a little, a fact not lost on Debbie. What a preposterous girl, he thought.
What’s the matter with Tim? wondered Elaine at about this same time. He seems so distracted, so uptight. Maybe, she thought, he was checking out other girls. He was an attractive boy; other girls would want to date him, kiss him, use him up. That’s just the way people were, she told herself. He’d really shaped up under her tutelage but, she thought jealously, here he was, running out on her. He’d probably break up with her on the eve of the prom and disappoint her, humiliate her; what a rotten shit he was. Elaine had had unfortunate experiences before with boys. She would forestall the embarrassment of a break up, by breaking up with him first. That would show him he couldn’t screw with her. And after all she’d done for him!
Tim and Elaine sat in his car at the drive-in movie on Saturday night, unaware that this would be their final date. They were both brooding. “I want to talk to you, Tim,” she began during the ad for the concession stand.
“Shoot,” he said, nibbling on a hot pickle-on-a-stick. He had ultimately convinced himself that his doubts about his girlfriend were all unfounded, mere products of his own imagination. So what if they hadn’t made love in nearly a month? Things would take care of themselves.
“I think we should see other people,” she said tentatively. “Other people?” he repeated. “You mean, date other people, kiss other people, make love with other people?” he asked, eyes wide.
“I’m only thinking of you,” she went on disingenously. “You’ve never dated other girls, kissed them, made love to them. What if there’s someone out there who is your soul mate?”
“But, you’re my soul mate, Elaine,” he answered. “I love you,” he declared. “Don’t you love me anymore?” he asked in a plaintive voice. For a moment, Elaine almost lost her resolve, but then she regrouped.
“I like you, Tim — a lot,” she said, confirming his worst fears. “Let’s stay friends, alright? Maybe we’ll get back together later, after we’ve had other experiences, you know? I mean, we’re only sixteen, and there’s a whole big world out there…” Tim knew this was the death knell. For the past school year, it had always been “I love you,” and not once “I like you.” Suddenly he felt cold. Then he grew enraged and hurt.
“I loved you,” he told her, “but you are a total bitch.” She erupted with a torrent of protests, but Tim tuned her out, tossed his uneaten pickle-on-a- stick out his window, and set the speaker back in its perch. Starting the car, he pulled slowly through the lot and exited the fenced-in theater property. When he pulled into Elaine’s driveway, neither of them said a word. The sound of her door opening seemed preternaturally loud, and she slammed it loudly and then walked swiftly across her lawn and let herself into the house. At the tender age of sixteen, Tim had suffered his first abandonment, his first real humiliation, his first broken heart.
Elaine attended the prom with Mandingo, the final insult. They were, Tim learned, voted “Most Attractive Couple.” Tim conjured in his brain the things that the other boy would be doing to Tim’s girl after the prom. His cheeks burned. As for Tim, he found that all presentable girls had by this time been spoken for and he had no date for the prom. Then he remembered. Approaching Debbie Hinson, he asked her if her offer was still open. And he would rent his own tux, he added magnanimously, trying to sweeten the deal. Debbie curled the lip on her homely face and told him to make love to himself. And, skipping the prom and staying home alone that night, he eventually did just that.
