Nursultan Nazarbayev at Nazarbayev University

Today is a memorable day for Nazarbayev University for Number #1 person of the country paid an official visit to our academic institution. Since the very morning everyone felt excited and all the students helped to organize the meeting with the President of the RK. Everyone was happy, everyone anticipated to see Mr. President. When Nursultan Abishuly entered the atrium everyone greeted him standing and applauding. At least the President came for we expected him to come on student commencement day. Nursultan Abishuly began his speech after a short greeting. I listened with attention and didn’t want to miss anything. To begin with, our President congratulated all the students of the university and told about the idea of opening University that will give international education in Kazakhstan. “WE are lucky” President said “to pass the entrance exams and study there right now.” Out of 4000 students applied to the university  only 484 students were accepted on the results of the exams. In future the University plans to educate 4000 students. It means 10 times more than it is now. The idea of Nazarbayev University ( New University of Astana that time) appeared 5 years ago. Analyzing the amount of money spent to give valuable education Nursultan Nazarbayev decided to open a New University in Astana that would meet all the requirements of foreign education. It will be cheaper to educate the next generation within the borders of home country. It will be sensible. On the other hand, with President and prestigious foreign universities in support I think it will be a temporary hardship on the way of building our own competent education.

Also, President touched upon Bolashak program, as he convinced that beginning from now students won’t go abroad for Bachelor’s degree to study professions offered at Nazarbayev University. The only one exception is the teachers of English language that can go abroad for B.A. by Bolashak. I think it is right. Why do not use the education that home country offers?

The contribution of Bolshak Program to the democratic and economic development of the country is great and so will be of Nazarbayev University’s I hope. The fact that the University was named after N. Nazarbayev proves its importance for the future of Kazakhstan. As Nursultan Nazarbayev said at first he didn’t want the university to have his name, but regarding all the changes happening in the world and the position of Kazakhstan in world trade market, President agreed. Today Kazakhstan plays a great role in the world economy and there is no doubt that the name of Nazarbayev University will back and champion its reputation in the world. Even in his speech today in the atrium the President referred to the University as New University of Astana several times.  

Moreover, President told about the projects on work in various spheres of development and expressed his gratitude to all people of Astana for collaboration in organizing OSCE summit.President shared all the kind and warm words uttered by 55 representatives for succesful and safe meeting. The OSCE summit was a huge step of Kazakhstan to worldwide fame.

Also University students asked their questions to the President making use of his long-waiting visit. One of the students asked: “What faculty would he choose if he was a student of Nazarbayev University?” The answer was explicit – engineering. And the students sitting behind me “wowed”, I guess they were the students of that precise faculty. With this answer President encouraged students to go to engineering faculty for our country lacks those professions. The most interesting case is that one of NU students were given a book by our President when he was 3 months. And now 19 years later that very child studies at the University named after President himself. In the end of his speech President encouraged the students to study hard and make that difference they are expected to do. As the gratitude to Nursultan Abishuly one of our best students ( President’s namesake) thanked him and gave the Declaration of our Nazarbayev University.   

 However, could students imagine that they would see other well-known politicians from the other countries as well?! Such politicians as Gerhard Sheder, Romano Prodi congratulated Kazakhstan with OSCE summit and students with Nazarbayev University. The nice meeting ended with common photo session of President, foreign guests and NU students. So we saw off all the guests and were ready to have hand-shake with them.

 

This weekend Astana

After 12 days of continuous working days the weekend was success. As usual I spent the day-off in a company of my relatives. In Saturday we often are in front of the TV set. But Sunday is a day of fun and pleasure. Last Sunday we visited Winter Charity Bazaar and bought a lot of interesting things. Especially, toys for my little cousin. There were a great deal of them as well as national souvenirs, books, candies, clothes, what not. The Charity bazaar gathered such countries as Kazakhstan, the U.S, the U.K., Korea, China, Japan, Brazil, Germany, France, Finland, Turkey, Pakistan, even India and many other countries. The countries had a great deal of things to offer. We bought a nice T-shirt with “the best child in the world” inscription on the Ukraine language for my cousin. In addition, tastes from different countries cuisine, children puzzles, American bag, souvenirs, Chinese key-rings, and toys. The atmosphere of up-coming Christmas and New Year holidays was felt through decorations and Santa Claus from Finland. It was funny, and being so tired we went home. Akhmet (my cousin) even fell asleep in the car on the way home.))

The New Year mood was still continued in the evening at home. We were busy by building New Year town for Akhmet: fairy tale palace, snow man, ice town, New Year trees and children figures. All the figures were made of salty dough and watercolour. Tired we went to bed at four at night. Only in the morning we were able to see what we were building for five hours. “We are sculptures” exclaimed my aunt, being glad to see The Land of Fairy Tale.

It is a pity that the real life is far from it. It is sometimes too dangerous. The same day in the morning we witnessed a fire occurred in one of the samsa cabins near our region. We entered the shop and everything was still in the street, 5-7 minutes later we went out hurrying to the Charity bazaar and saw that fire( on the photo).

The Summit is over, but it is still spoken about in Mass Media of the country. The weekend news had many things to share with people about the summit passed. National TV broadcast channels prepared special programs for the last event of the last month of the year. People returned to their every day routine and are proud to organize the summit with safety. Denizens of Astana accepted the stopgap measures with patience and understanding. Nearly 55 representatives of different countries met again to accept Astana Declaration, the document accepted 11 years after since the last OSCE summit. So, the summit was held successfully and it is turn for Asiada to follow the same route.

President N.Nazarbayev are going to visit our university tomorrow. With the hearts open we are ready to meet our President.

 

The day before OSCE

Today is the last day to arrange all the necessary things for OSCE. A great attention is paid to the security of the people living in Astana and to the guests coming for the summit. It is a meeting of the highest level all over the world. It is an audacious and at the same time full of responsibility step. Today we do have no lessons and are at the university till the lunch time. Because all the roads will be closed. Some of my students are very glad. Venera, one of favourite students said: ” It is a good opportunity to sleep well.” Some of our students have so many assignments and course works that they even sometimes do not sleep at all. They say it is okay if you don’t go to bed one day, but the next day you feel awkward yourself . So I hope students will spend their free time with profit. I also plan to finish a book I started reading a decade ago, it is “The sun also rises” by Ernest Hemingway. And turning the several units of my GRE preparation is also included into my plan list for tomorrow.

NU students are passing their exams this week. Today is the final day of the exams and at 11:00 we like supervisors are to control the discipline during the exams. We did the same job yesterday. It was their first exam this academic year and some students worried about the results of them. Others were confident in their knowledge and just asked to cheer them up and good luck! I wish them GOOD LUCK today too!

It is expected that some of the foreign guests will visit our university and have a talk with students. Our study will go on despite the summit while other universities and colleges have a week holiday due to it!

 

All I know about Asiada 2011

After the weekend spent with my uncle’s family I am sitting there to share with you all the events happened with me within the two days. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have day-off this weekend.  Because they were the working days due to the summit of OSCE. Some of the summit members are coming already and our Nazarbayev University students have a chance to meet with some f them.

I am glad our Kazakhstan is moving rapidly to the global market economy. The first reason is OSCE summit. It is a great privilege to hold world important event here in our mother country. I am proud that our republic is the first to organize such kind of important summit among post soviet countries. Another reason is the Seventh Asian Winter Games. These two events are burgeoning factors to the development of the country. As a volunteer of the Asian winter games in Astana I can say that these winter games will be eye-catching headlines of many Mass Media resources. Even creating a unique TV channel to broadcast the duration of the games is in perspective. After we had classes with our PDP teacher I and Ainagul hurried to the Organization Committee. We were informed to be leader-volunteers. The day before we also had a meeting there and Inessa, organizer of the Asian Games, told us that we would have special clothes with Asian logo. I was glad! Not because we will have clothes, but rather we will present our country in Asiada with dignity. All in all, I am grateful to Bakhyt, who helped us to become volunteers. If we didn’t meet her in the train, we would never be there. All the tickets for Asiada are being sold quickly, because the opening day is already defined: it is January, 30 at 18:00 at Astana Arena Stadium.

 The another news I want to share with you is Volunteer Commencement Day. It will be in December, 9 in Sport Complex “Daulet” at 17:00. The certificates of psychological training and our volunteer IDs will handed in our hands. And only after the commencement we can say we are volunteers of Asian Games in Astana. By the way, it will be my third commencement day. ( I hope I will have the fourth that I am solicitous of as well).

There are so many things about organizing Asian winter games in Astana, and there are so many memorable events awaiting our people. As a secret(formally), I hurry to acknowledge you that there will be built Ice Town in Astana due to the program of  “Cultural Asiada” in the RK. The Ice Town will be a representation of Kazakh culture and traditions and the place where Asian Winter Games Torch will be placed in a period of games. As the official website of the Seventh Asian Winter Games states “On the 11th of January in Al-Kuwait, where the headquarters of OCA is situated, during the solemn lighting ceremony the Flame of our Relay will be lit. It is planned to organize broadcasting of the lighting ceremony of the flame on all national channels. On the 12th of January, the Torch will come to Almaty, Kazakhstan. After the welcoming ceremony of the Torch, Relay will go along streets of the South capital, and then the regions. During 20 days the Torch will travel throughout all regions of Kazakhstan and on the 30th of January, it will finish in Astana at the “Astana-Arena” stadium at the opening ceremony of the Asian games.” So the people of capital city as well as the tourists coming especially for the winter games can see the torch in the center of the city in a span of 7 days.

Our country did its utmost on the sixteenth Asian summer games in Guangzhou and took the fifth place. A good result! I hope we will improve our results in Winter Games! It is expected that opening ceremony of Asiada 2011 in Kazakhstan will be much better than any other world events. Nevertheless, the time will show. Only 61 days are left untill the Seventh Asian Winter Games 2011 in Astana-Almaty.

 

Asiada: the first day of training

This  and the next years are promised to be successful for Kazakhstan for we have OSCE on December, 1-2, 2010 and we tend to organize and hold the Seventh Asian Winter Games in Astana-Almaty from January, 30 till February, 6, 2010. Both events bear grandiose importance to the country as well to the people who are responsible for it. Realizing this fact and being a patriot of my country I decided to partake in Asian Winter games. With a burden to support my country in such kind of assiduous task I became a volunteer of SWAG in Astana. It is my first time when I participate in world event and surely I feel excited. I hope I will get more experience of working in a world level, find more new friends in Kazakhstan and in foreign countries as well. It makes me feel happy, I anticipate for the beginning of the games. I think that success of this Asian games partially depends upon us – volunteers! Volunteer is an image and the first impression of the country. That’s why we should do our utmost to demonstrate our republic from the good sides. It is due to us how other countries will remember Kazakh people, what their opinion about our ability will be. It is a hard, but at the same time a rewarding job. To my mind, such kind of events are push-ups to the further development and recognition in world economy.

However, finding the right volunteers to represent the status of the republic is a difficult and responsible task. The function of the organization committee is not only to fill the rows of potential and want-to-be volunteers, but to develop them, to prepare them to any unexpected situations and to teach them how to cope with definite barriers during the games. The process of becoming a volunteer requires passing application, psychological training and accreditation processes. All of them are very important and here I would like to share my feelings from the first day of psychological training.

Psychological training is a process of releasing your inner world, a process that helps you to break the walls of mistrust, a process that motivates to believe in your abilities, to show your strengths, to attenuate your weaknesses. My psychological training has begun today. It lasted only for two hours, but the time passed very quick. To tell my truth I didn’t expect anything unusual from it, I accepted it formal, must-to-be meeting. However, it was much better, I dare say super! First of all, we introduced ourselves ( there were only 7 of us) and then we played a rather interesting game called ‘iceberg’. The point of the game is to unite people unfamiliar with each other to reach a common purpose. The rule of the game was to stand unitedly on small pieces of paper and do not let anybody from your ‘friends’ to fell out. Amazing!

Furthermore, iceberg was followed by switching the roles games. We formed pairs and told about ourselves to our partners in a span of five minutes and vice versa listened to them during the next five minutes. Then we told everything that we found out about our friend intending to be that person himself. It was funny to hear your story from the other person. Really funny! After we listened to not less interesting lecture on the theme of reproductive systems and watched a cartoon about the way our organs function. In the end each one shared their feelings about the training and were grateful  to spend to the staff of the center.

On my part, I can say that I am really happy that I enrolled in Asian games as a volunteer. I consider it as a way full of pleasant adventures. Our psychological training will last for five days. And I am looking forward for the next meeting…..