Ancient Greeks said that a man can change a horse, a house, but he never change his family. That is why family is the most dear for man. And though a man can change his house, he will never forget his native one. As for me, I was born in Minsk & have lived here all my life. So ,as it usual for he big cities, I live in a large block of flats.

           My flat consists of two rooms, not counting a kitchen. There are three of us in the family: my parents & I, so I live in a separate room & my parents in another one.

           My room is relatively small, it is about 4 meters long & 3 meters wide and this has some advantages, because when the weather is cold, just like now, it is easier to warm a small room than large one. On the floor there is a thick carpet, two good water-colours hang on the walls, and besides them there are a large number of embroidered paints, for my mother is very skillful embroider. Also there is my bad there, the table where I make my homework, computer, tape-recorder with radio & small TV-set. I’m fond of reading, so there is a bookcase filled with books. I usually try to keep my room clean & tidy, for disorder irritates me, but when I’m doing my lessons, very often I can’t find the right book in that heap of things I make on the table and all around it.

           The most important place in our flat is, of course, kitchen. There we usually have our meals. There is everything necessary for storing & preparing food there: refrigerator, running water, conditioner, a large quantity of different shells & cases, so I even don’t know what is stored there and electric oven. For my mind electric oven is much safer than gas one, but it is not so quick. From the another side it stores heat for a long time, so you don’t have to turn it on every time when you want to have a cup of hot tea, and it is very handy. Yellow lampshade gives a warm colours to the room & it is very cozy to sit there, having tea & reading a book.

           Usually when we have free time we all gather in living room and watch TV-set, read books or fresh newspapers, or discuss that happened to us during the day. In general, I would like to mention that our family is very friendly and we are considered to be a united family. Although, we sometimes quarrel with each other, we get on well and live in concord because we all try to be tolerant with each other short comings. My parents are good, understanding, loving ant intelligent. And they are wrapped up in their children. So I even can’t explain how much I owe to my father & mother.

           Live in our home revolves round my mother. The is a perfect mother & good wife. She copes with looking after the family and doing a full-time job. What I really like about my mother is that she always find time to take care of her appearance. By character my mother is not very strict & very kind. She has a lot of friends & I admire her ability to keep friendship with those people, with whom she got acquainted long ago. My mother is practical woman and it helps her to solve different household problems and generally it is very useful, handy feature of character nowadays, I think.

           In general, I think, I’m very lucky with relatives. All of them have a high education. My father is engineer of electric measure devises & has a number of inventions. He is a member of International Academy of Informatization of the Republic of Belarus. He is very strict & serious man. My uncle was a geologist on the Far East, have made thousand of kilometers there, now he works in the Belorussian Geological Institute, one of the institutes of AS RB. My grandfather was a rather famous mathematician in the field of mathematical logic & cybernetics. He was also one of the first soviet programmers and worked on the first huge counting machines. His name we can find in the Soviet Encyclopedia of Mathematics. His brother was working in Kazan Institute of Aviation and it is very interesting to speak with him for me. My granny was a teacher of Russian and now she is on pension. Both my mother & father had gold medals for finishing school. So, as you can see, there is nothing surprising in that I have chosen my way also to sciences.

           In conclusion I would like to say that I’m very lucky with family & in our aggressive and competitive world we always help each other so at home we always can find care, affection and rest which are so necessary to renew each member emotional strength.

Problems of Youth

Modern life is full of problems big & petty, global & personal, pressing & not very urgent, easy to solve & insoluble, objective & invented by ourselves, everlasting problems that our grandparents had to deal with & new ones, born by 20^th century. All these problems are interrelated and tied up in a knot. And of course they do not make our life any simpler.

As far as the young people are concerned their young age & lack of experience only add to hardness of life. Young people are just in the beginning of their life road & have to learn how to recognize good & bad, friends & enemies, how to overcome difficulties, et cetera. The first & the most serious problem for the young is to choose their future occupation, because there are very many trades & professions which are important & useful, & it is very difficult to decide what you want to be. That is why lots of school leavers do not have clear idea of their future job. It is even more difficult to find ones vocation. Recent political & economic changes in our country have brought in sight the threat of youth unemployment. And today young people are not so certain about their future as we all used to be. Young people also face the problem of choice of higher educational establishment in case they made up their mind to continue their education, then it is necessary to pass the entrance examinations, to leave their native town or village & to live in a hostile apart from family all on their own like grown-ups. Another problems that the young are concerned with are the problem of drugs & AIDS which often go hand in hand, the struggle for a healthy life style, against drugs, alcohol & eve smoking, which lead to illness & sometimes to crime. Parent- children problems & a problem of young families can also be mentioned.