To the Tune of Several Hundred Pages of Mandatory Reading which Must Be Done in an Impossibly Small Amount of Time        


G! 
What? 
Whoops where the hell in the where the hell am I is this?
I don’t know I don’t know I
Simply and simple just I—I don’t know—it’s—so cold hard and cold why are my eyes closed I never closed them I don’t think but so open and then—no no open them and—then no not this no . ‘o . . ‘n’ . . . .  ‘‘o’’ . . . . . . . . ‘’’’n’’’’ . . . ‘ . ‘’ . . ‘’’’ . . . . . . . . ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘  . . so you see that’s why it had to be done the way it was done. Any other way, which, we will grant you, would have provided more precision, would have quadrupled the time needed to be ready to do the count. For doing the count is more important than the count being perfectly accurate—which could never be achieved, no matter the amount of time and care taken. See—here is how these people operate. Give them something to do with absolutely no explanation of how to do it. Just—do this and do that and this that and put it aside and go to the next one. And will they protest? Some maybe—but most not. Because the way we’re going to tell them what to do can’t be too simple. Too simple, and they’ll see right through we’re telling them nothing. Just handing them this big sloppy bag of gas which by the time they get to work at all will be limp-hung down empty and—they will see, and they will know. Then they’ll come back. And we’ll have to admit. That we have told them nothing, not because we’re holding back, but because we have no idea how to do it ourselves. So we got to wrap words and if that then do this and is thus then do that ‘round this gasbag. To the tune of several hundred pages of mandatory reading which must be done in an impossibly small amount of time. There will be some {and these we don’t want} who will see this all as an insane fiasco of make-work ‘cause we got no real work to give you right now kind of make-work, but. There’s another kind of breed which is the kind most in this herd are. It’s the kind that always feels a little bit too stupid. A little bit unsure of themselves no matter what they’re doing. A little bit unqualified to do anything they end up doing, but—never able to say I don’t get it or help me out here or I don’t get this. I got to stop. I just can’t do it because they fear being exposed as idiots or phonies or liars {as in—what the hell you mean you don’t know how to do this job? We hired you ‘cause you said you could do it; that you’ve done it in other places, and at other times, before; what; were you lying to us? [no I was not it’s just that ah ah] Oh? Why the hell did you lie to us then…} or another of the many other variations on this theme {such as—what do you mean you don’t know what to do here? Time was spent in training you to do each and every possible thing you’d ever be made to do on this job, and you said you were ready [oh I know I said that but its just this part here I don’t] why did you lie and say you were ready when you knew you weren’t ready [no no I did not lie it’s just this part here it’s] oh yes you knew here’s the proof here you are not at all ready [but hold it no no I am ready it’s just th’] hey look everybody! hundred faces turn all a’smile here’s another liar who lied that they were ready when they weren’t [no no that’s not true] hey ha look and see them all laughing at you sucka’ hundreds of mouths eyes and faces all laughing yah that’s right sucka’ yes you lied sucka’ that you were good enough sucka’ yes you lied and you lied and look HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT THE LYING SUCKA’ laughing and laughing and laughing and here's the LYING SUCKA’ laughing pointing the LYING SUCKA’ LYING SUCKA’ LYING SUCKA’ pointing laughing the LIE and the LIE laughing pointing} and like that so you see that’s the last thing they want to see happen to them, so, that type will dig in [!]—that type will—get ‘er done[!!} 
Yes get ‘er done, Smitty!
That type will get ‘er done!
Party!
Party!
Party!
Wonderful!
[air pillo air pillo air pillo air]
[spit]

The awakening 

when you live asleep 
in the life
all situations
they become dreams
you also live
many nightmares 
Where to learn from what happened,
recognize what has hurt 
forgive those who hurt me 
forgive me for those I have hurt 
accept what is apprehended
It's what you have to understand 
This awakening is not for everyone
because once I wake up
the mission is to transcend.

Mirta Liliana Ramírez has been a poet and writer since she was 12 years old. She has been a Cultural Manager for more than 35 years. Creator and Director of the Groups of Writers and Artists: Together for the Letters, Artescritores, MultiArt, JPL world youth, Together for the letters Uzbekistan 1 and 2. She firmly defends that culture is the key to unite all the countries of the world. She works only with his own, free and integrating projects at a world cultural level. She has created the Cultural Movement with Rastrillaje Cultural and Forming the New Cultural Belts at the local level and also from Argentina to the world.

Nowadays it is common for young people to travel to far-flung places to study. This essay will argue that despite the fact that it often leads to financial difficulties, it is far more advantageous to study in places that are far away from one’s parents because it leads to independence. 
 
Young people frequently face financial problems if they decide to enrol in a degree course in a distant town. This is because it is no longer possible for them to live in their parents’ house, and they, therefore, have to pay for their own accommodation as well as utilities and food. This can come as quite a shock for many young people who have never had to pay a bill in their lives. For example, in this country, it is common for young people in this situation to take on part-time jobs so that they can pay their expenses while at university, and perhaps the most popular such job is being a waiter in a restaurant or bar.  
 
The great advantage of studying in a far-off place is that it allows young people to experience what it is like to be independent of their families. In many Western countries, it is humiliating for someone over the age of 18 to have to ask their parents for money and also to not be able to live their life the way they want to because they have to live by their parents' rules. Leaving the family home allows them to choose whatever lifestyle they want and not be under any influence from their elders. For instance, at universities in the UK, it is noticeable that students who are no longer living in their parents’ houses mature more quickly than those who are still living at home, and this is clearly because they cannot depend on their parents and must instead embrace their newfound independence. 
 
In conclusion, travelling to a distant place to study might be financially challenging for those who have just left their childhood home, but the advantages of being independent far outweigh that drawback.


Shabnam Shukhratova 


She was born on August 13, 2008 in Navbahar district, Navoi region. Currently, she is an 8th-grade student of school 21 in Navbahor district and is the class captain of this class. Her works have been published in anthologies. She is also a volunteer. SHe is also a participant and winner of various Olympiads and competitions. SHe also has international certificates.

Nowadays it is common for young people to travel to far-flung places to study. This essay will argue that despite the fact that it often leads to financial difficulties, it is far more advantageous to study in places that are far away from one’s parents because it leads to independence. 
 
Young people frequently face financial problems if they decide to enrol in a degree course in a distant town. This is because it is no longer possible for them to live in their parents’ house, and they, therefore, have to pay for their own accommodation as well as utilities and food. This can come as quite a shock for many young people who have never had to pay a bill in their lives. For example, in this country, it is common for young people in this situation to take on part-time jobs so that they can pay their expenses while at university, and perhaps the most popular such job is being a waiter in a restaurant or bar.  
 
The great advantage of studying in a far-off place is that it allows young people to experience what it is like to be independent of their families. In many Western countries, it is humiliating for someone over the age of 18 to have to ask their parents for money and also to not be able to live their life the way they want to because they have to live by their parents' rules. Leaving the family home allows them to choose whatever lifestyle they want and not be under any influence from their elders. For instance, at universities in the UK, it is noticeable that students who are no longer living in their parents’ houses mature more quickly than those who are still living at home, and this is clearly because they cannot depend on their parents and must instead embrace their newfound independence. 
 
In conclusion, travelling to a distant place to study might be financially challenging for those who have just left their childhood home, but the advantages of being independent far outweigh that drawback.


Shabnam Shukhratova 


She was born on August 13, 2008 in Navbahar district, Navoi region. Currently, she is an 8th-grade student of school 21 in Navbahor district and is the class captain of this class. Her works have been published in anthologies. She is also a volunteer. SHe is also a participant and winner of various Olympiads and competitions. SHe also has international certificates.

Statue

(in front of the statue of Zulfiyakhanim)

There is a statue, very big,

Showing the face of Tashkent.

Apricots stand near the statue,

Talking slowly with the spring season.

Feeling a strange feeling in the heart,

I enter the garden with excitement.

My eyes fall on a long corridor,

There is no refreshment like this anywhere.

Flowers in the hands of girls every spring,

All are wearing badges.

These mysterious melodies play the poet’s heart,

Zulfiya is standing, missing us.

See…

Look carefully and carefully with hope,

How many patterns, ornaments, polishes are given.

He calls to this abode,

A mighty statue is watching over us.

There is a statue, great…

Mahliyo Rahimboyeva was born on November 2, 2002 in Gurlan district of Khorezm region. Currently, he is a 2nd-year student of the Faculty of Philology of Urganch State University, studying philology and languages: Uzbek studies. Mahliya is one of the talented students, the collection of poetry “Tabassum Tarovati” and the monograph “Symbols related to the image of nature in the works of Rauf Parfi” were published. In addition, Mahliyo actively participates in republican and international conferences with his articles and theses. Literary-artistic and journalistic articles have been published in regional and republican newspapers and magazines.

Johnny Mem

 

Tyranny is a soup best bifurcated by patriarchy.

so old gran always said as she baked the smells of smarm

till the windows ran from the oilskin like old men in need of salad.

Artificial brains always remind me of that dessert

 

with the tentacles and the expiration date

shining in one perfect summer like Nerf bikinis

dipped in dangerous Substacks, the halo of hernias 

lowing softly in the mistrial. If only we could return

 

not to what we were, but to what we would be in a separate discourse

with more engagement and shitposting, more gelatinous rescue

of what Arnold Schwarzenegger terminated before he was good/evil 

or evil/good. But you can’t put your face

 

in the same fire twice, for the fire may pivot to video,

but it is not the same. And neither is your face. 

“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” Explain and elucidate the significance of the following line in the light and perspectives of Austenian feminine characters.

Jane Austen’s feminine figures including the heroine Elizabeth Bennet and the manorial role of Charlotte Collins Lucas have agonistic perceptions or differing opinions with relation to marriage, conjugality, intimacy, self personhood or individual fulfillment.

Charlotte Lucas’ preferences of conjugality or marital alliance with Mr. William Collins, surmounts the touchstones of mercenary wedding, prudential matrimony or materialistic marriage lacking of admiration, love, romance unlike Elizabeth Bennet’s relationship. Economic futures and financial security are everything that a woman would be intending for a sustenance of livelihood and, in this sense, Charlotte is not an exception. Elizabeth Bennet despises such courtship or conjugality which lacks romantic love in engagements or relationships and this is evidently crystal clear by Elizabeth’s dialogical interiority demarking, “she [Charlotte Lucas] had sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage”.

Elizabeth Bennet further proceeds, critiquing her formerly intimate acquainted friend, Charlotte Lucas’ fiance, “Mr. William Collins was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and her attachment to her[Charlotte Lucas] was imaginary.”

Elizabeth possesses the sentiment that a woman’s wellbeing is either affirmed or jeopardized by the social institution of marriage. Jane Austen, through Elizabeth Bennet, says to regard marriage as the union of refinement and self-improvement. Charlotte Lucas’s marriage guarantees money, wealth, or fortunes but at the stakes of a husband famed for being conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, or silly.

“How despicably have I acted!… How humiliating is this discovery!” Elizabeth’s exclamation of being cheated by the befoolery and fraudulence of Wickham ameliorates her fragile relation with Mr. Darcy. Her marriage exemplifies the acknowledgment of “I marry for love and not for comfort” and “advantage to the union of both”.

Charlotte and Elizabeth: Multiple Modernities In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Author: Melina Moe, Source: ELH, Vol 83, No. 4, Winter 2016, pages: 1075-1103, Yale University, Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

Describe Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as a form of romance novel genre with textual citations and references to features of spatiotemporality.

Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (P&P) is a social criticism upon the family life and English society from the preNapoleonic French revolutions to the post Austenian Regency England. Throughout the bicentennial adaptations, translations, transmutations, simplifications, continuations, dramatization and theatrical embodiments have evolved the emergence of spatiotemporality from Netherfield to Meryton, Bath to London and Derbyshire Pemberley.

Explicitly Longbourn Meryton Hertfordshire ladies especially the much piquant Bennet household, have attendance to participate in marital ball festivals occasioning the neighboring estates to be exalted in revelry and merriment of the marriage market. Herein, haughty and arrogant Fitzwiliam Darcy’s manifested appearance harbours a presentiment of ‘above station…above company…’ attitude.

Upon facing to see Elizabeth, he declares to Bingley, “She is tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me. I am at present in no humour to give consequences to young ladies sighted by other men.” Bath is the haven Gardiners and Elizabeth Bennet have a harangue of marital alliance discourses pertaining to conjugality and relationships with her family relations therein, “Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion ends and avarice begins?…My dear, dear, aunt,” she cried rapturously cried out. What delight! What felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?!” Oh! What hours of transport we shall spend! ….Lakes, mountains and rivers…generality of travellers.”

Jane’s struggling resistance to recovering from depression and mood swings and the visitation of Miss Bingley at Gracechurch Street happens to be a lengthy dialogue between microcosmic spaces and timings. Screams and tantrums of Lady Catherine Debourgh metaphorically bespeaks Jane Austen’s own rages and this is destined to be venued at Lady Catherine Debourgh’s residence of Rosings and Hunsford parsonage of Kent where Mr. Collins curates. “Mr. Collins, you must marry…Chuse properly, chuse a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of a person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way.”

“This is a most unfortunate affair and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation.” Then the novel’s narratological obsequiousness and space time travel furtherance of London to East Sussex Brighgton occurs with Lydia and Wickham’s scandalous affair into an elopement. Elopement of scandal in the sense, that ladies of Regency England should have marriage settlements with family’s consent and approbation. This grimes the scandalous affair to exploitative financial pecuniary usurpation by George Wickham and the disregard for moral opprobrium amongst of the Bennets amongst the gentries.

Until Darcy’s rescue, the family would have sunk into pangs of disgrace and eventually lost esteemed value. Vindictiveness of Elizabeth for heroic Darcy’s “blind, partial, prejudices and biased viewpoint and sentiment ameliorates salvaging of climax, “I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away where either where concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself.” Deberyshire’s “Pemberley grounds” becomes the heyday of truth that Darcy’s impersonation imitates none the less as “”He is the best landlord, and the best master,” said she [housekeeper Mrs. Reynolds] “that ever lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves. Elizabeth Bennet’s admiring wish for being the mistress of Pemberley turns a sublime touch of reality after the philanthropic and humane attitude of Darcy’s revelations with subsequent rescue efforts for George and Lydia.

In this relevance, Elizabeth Bennet is interpreted to be a stormier traveller of space-temporality from out of the library to the ball room and then up to the altar. The setting for ending strikes the Pemberley with Darcy’s denouement, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words which laid the foundation. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

To the viewpoint of literary critic Andrew H Wright, “To say that Darcy is proud and Elizabeth is prejudiced is to tell but half the story. Pride and Prejudice are both faults but they are the necessary defects of desirable merits: self-importance and intelligence. The novel makes clear the fact that Darcy’s pride leads to a prejudice and Elizabeth’s prejudice stems from a pride in her own perceptions. And the tragic ironic theme of the book might indeed be said to have centered on the dangers of human intellectual complexities.”

Further Reading Johns Hopkins University Publishers Press, Celebrating The Bicentennial: Jane Austen And Her Recent Critics, Barry Roth, Ohio University, Studies In The Novel, Winter 1976, Vol. 8, No. 4, pages: 474-481 http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/dighum/2016/12/01/mapping-pride-and-prejudice/

Pride and Prejudice Editorship of Donald Gray 1. Claudia L. Johnson, Pride and Prejudice and the Pursuit of Happiness 2. Susan Fraiman, The Humiliation of Elizabeth Bennett

Marriage, almost inevitably the narrative event that constitutes a happy ending, represents in their view submission to a masculine narrative imperative that has traditionally allotted women love and men the world. Ironically perhaps, such readers have preferred novels that show the destructive events of patriarchal oppressions, for they complain that Austen’s endings, her happily-ever-after-marriages, represents a decline in her protagonists. In the light of this commentary explain the significance of the ending of Pride and Prejudice.

Or explain Pride and Prejudice as Marxist-feminist criticism of nineteenth century English society. ‘’As in much women’s fiction, the end, the reward, of women’s apprenticeship to life is marriage… Marriage, which requires [heroine and protagonist Elizabeth Bennet] to dwindle by degrees into a wife.’’ Nineteenth century women’s lives are satirized by Jane Austen’s romantic fiction through burlesque comedy, irony and most tellingly of marriage
as a self-knowledge; the overcoming of egoism and the mark of psychic development.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice’s ensuing narrative with the aphoristic maxim of that, ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’. On the contrary, ironically, young bachelorettes such as the Bennet family maidens and Charlotte Lucas are in the dire urgency of procuring their wealthier husbands for securing their fortune which the marriage motif exerts throughout the narrative culminating in the resolution or reconciliation amongst the hero and heroine, notably Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

Literary critics like chivalry balladic romance novelist Walter Scott’s shrewd observation of Elizabeth’s changing heart at Pemberley rekindles her blind, partial, prejudice or biased opinions to enlightening truth and light. Elizabeth Bennet becomes admirable of the tastes and judgment imprintings and engravings of the Derbyshire Pemberley mansion of Mr. Darcy. This resemblance salvages her vindication of her behavioral attitude and
sentimental temperament to love and matrimony after hearing of the housekeeping stewardess’ narrative; “the best master and the best landlord that ever lived, not like those wild young men of nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves’

The justification of George Wickham’s verdict of ‘..imprudence of abominable Mr. Darcy..’ is revealing to be unfolding treachery to Elizabeth Bennet, and this hints to the material prospects of usurpation of wealth and fortunes by veteran social class and working class bourgeois exploiting marriage to be surfeit of worldly advantage and materialism.

Darcy has tied the knot of ignorant and imprudent Lydia with the impecunious George Wickham and thus safeguards the Bennet family from the apocalypse of social disenfranchisement and infamous disempowerment. ..

Deconstructionist Judith Lowder Newton’s exclamations of the Marxist-feminist close reading of Pride and Prejudice emerges the revelations of ‘fantasy-wish-fulfillment structure where the boy meets -the-girl-leads-to-marriage’ convention.

On the contrary, the fairy tale structure and the materialist language which pervades the novel emphasizes rather than represses or obscures what Terry Eagleton terms ‘the fault lines of the nineteenth century English society’

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are both revolutionary and romantic and even unconservative to be true in Butler’s lucid rhetoric, ‘anti-jacobin tradition’ Through ironic reversals and miraculous coincidences Austen has pointedly observed sentimental ideals and novelistic conventions on the one hand, and the social realities of sexist prejudice, hypocrisy and avarice on the other.

Further Reading & References

1. The Continuity of Jane Austen’s Novels, Author: Juliet McMaster, Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Autumn 1970, Vol. 10, No. 4, pages: 723-729

2. Can This Marriage Be Saved: Jane Austen Makes Sense of An Ending, Author: Karen Newman, Source: ELH, Winter 1983, Vol. 50, No. 4, pages: 693-710, Johns Hopkins University Press Publishers

Pieces of us 
scatter in the moonlight                                                                               
 
On a rooftop above Manhattan
 
We sit dangling legs 
over the edge 
like two thieves in the night 

Set to steal forbidden treasure

Our eyes to the stars
affected by the drink
we laugh 
unravel

Acknowledge what’s left on the table 



My fingers trail 
across the scratchy blacktop 
to your bare forearm
savor the soft hairs on your skin
tiptoe to your wrist

I take your hand in mine

Moments sail by
still and quiet
the warmth of you 
by my side
fears vanished

My eyes close

The gentle breeze 
sweeps my hair
across my cheek
while my mind strays

I am lost in the summer night

You squeeze my hand
then pull away
promised to the pretty girl downstairs 
who holds your baby in her arms

Star-crossed 
and conflicted
our timing out of sync
with life’s events

Yet there is peace in the moment

I turn to speak
whisper something
to smooth your hesitance 
but no one’s there 

The fantasy is broken
 

Linda S. Gunther has written six romantic suspense novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach, and most recently published in 2021, Death Is A Great Disguiser. Ms. Gunther’s short stories, poetry, book reviews and essays have been published in a variety of literary journals.