Pavel’s Impressions

Every child has a dream. I was 5 when my mum asked me: “What is your dream, son?” – I said simply: “I want to visit London”. Frankly speaking I don’t know when and why I decided to go there but when I finished school I knew that I would definitely go to Great Britain!

For the next 3 years I forgot about my dream. And only the spring of 2009 reminded me about it. At that time I was already a CFS student at WIUT and I was very busy with my study. One sunny spring day I was entering the university building when next to the entrance I noticed a desk where the local representatives from the English publishing company Macmillan Education were promoting their books. There was nothing unusual about that. Only a green card, with “Win a place on the business experience” written on it, attracted my attention. I took the card and turned it over. On the reverse I read: “If you want to work for two weeks in an international company – Macmillan Education in Oxford, send to us three entries. 1st – describe yourself and write about your interests and skills. 2nd – what do you want achieve at this placement? And 3rd – describe a successful brand from your own country”. I don’t why but at that moment I realized that there was something special in it, I felt that I definitely should try.

So after that I have approached Bokhodir Ayupov and asked him to help me to take an interview from one of the companies. Our business lecturer did not refuse to help and that was important for me. He suggested writing about PAYNET just because it is one of the recognized brands in the country. He helped me to make an appointment with a PR-Manager from the PAYNET Company and I recorded my conversation with this employee. After that I translated everything that he had told me about the company into English and finally I wrote an essay. The day before the deadline I gave my three entries to Rozaliya Ziryanova. She checked everything that I wrote for the contest. And that was another important factor for me.

I send my entries to the UK on time and I left for my home country - Turkmenistan. Macmillan Education promised to announce the results at the end of June. I checked my e-mail every day but I didn’t get the announcement of the results at the end of the month. And only in the first week of July I saw a letter from Macmillan. My heart missed a beat or two. I opened it and started to read: “Dear Pavel, Thank you for your entries. I am glad to say that your entries were one of the two winning!” I don’t remember what else was written there just because it was no longer very important to me. Before this letter I didn’t tell my parents about my participation in the contest but after the letter I told them everything. Of course my parents as well as Rozaliya Ivanovna and Bokhodir Ayupov were proud of me. As for me, I was shocked, I could not believe that it was possible.

On the next day Kamol Kamilov, the Macmillan representative in Tashkent, wrote to me saying that they were proud that I would represent Uzbekistan in the UK and also I was informed that this competition was held worldwide: Macmillan got entries from Europe, Asia, North Africa and South America. The first winner was me and the other one was a girl from the Czech Republic. Another interesting fact is that the first winner was not from Europe or America but from Asia.

At last, after all different procedures regarding visa, insurance and tickets, on 8th August I was in London. I will never forget that pleasant feeling when I made my first step in London when I went out from Heathrow Airport and realized that dreams come true.

Macmillan Education headquarters is situated in Oxford, so I took a bus to Oxford where Charlotte, a person who was responsible for this contest, was waiting for me. She took me to a company flat, gave me the schedule of my days in the company where I was to stay for 2 weeks, working with the marketing, sales, production and editorial departments. I had to get acquainted with the process of publishing, promoting and selling books and help out employees in the office. During these 2 weeks the second winner and I met a lot of people and we had a few interesting tasks from almost every department in the company. At the end of our internship we wrote our diaries about the time that we spent in Oxford. And soon it was published in the Internet on one of the Macmillan’s websites.

Of course during my stay in the UK I visited its capital – London and saw all those places which I had seen in books at school. And on the last day in London when I was at the top of London Eye and had the bird’s-eye view of the whole city, I became sure that dreams can come true!

Now when I already started to study at Level 4 at WIUT I can say that this was the most valued experience I have ever had. But without the help of all CFS teachers who taught me during my first year I could not have had a chance to win the competition. My special thanks go to Bokhodir Ayupov and Rozaliya Ziryanova.

To conclude, I want to say that from our childhood we are always taught to set realistic goals, we are told not to dream because our dreams may not come true. But I am telling you - you can achieve everything you want! You should always believe in yourself, always be confident that you can achieve a lot and say to yourself, “If somebody can do it – so can I”. This refers to everything you dream about, and everything you undertake. Everything is possible!

Pavel Zaruchevsky