Pauza Magazine Spring & Summer 2011 | Page 6

2010 National Essay Contest The award ceremony for the 2010 National Essay Contest was held on Friday, March 11th at the American Corner in Skopje. The winners from each of the three age groups were invited to attend along with their teachers. They were awarded certificates and book prizes, and each student read their essay for the audience. Representatives from the project partners of Peace Corps and ELTAM (English Language T eachers Association of Macedonia) were in attendance. Several speakers offered their words of congratulations to recognize these students’ achievement: John Surface, Cultural and Education Affairs Attaché from the U.S. Embassy; Stephen Kutzy, Peace Corps From left to right: Ivona Glavinceska (Category 1 Macedonia Country Director; Elizabeta Hristovska, National Winner), Elena Brchioska (Category 2 ELTAM President; and Aleksandra Popovski, 2011 National Winner), Gligor Tasev (Category 3 Essay Contest National Coordinator from ELTAM. National Winner), John Surface, Elizabeta Hristovska, Evan Brengle, Stephen Kutzy, We would like to take this opportunity to thank Aleksandra Popovska each of these individuals for attending the ceremony and helping to make it a meaningful event for the students. Also, we would like to thank the American Corner staff from each location in Macedonia for their support throughout the stages of the contest, and all of the many Peace Corps volunteers who helped with the contest by recruiting and coaching students, collecting and judging essays, arranging venues and hosting workshops, and distributing certificates. This contest could not have happened without all of your contributions. Thank you. Finally, I would like to again congratulate the national winners. These students’ essays exemplify the creativity and insight we were hoping for when we decided upon this years’ topic: My School in 100 Y ears. These essays each present imaginative and thoughtful responses to this topic. Not only did these students explore the possibilities for schools in the future, but they also examined the implications of these possibilities. These students strove to form original ideas on the topic, and further, they invested their time and effort into expressing those ideas in words. T o the students, I would like to say again, “Great job!” The winning essays appear here. I hope Pauza readers enjoy them as much as we did. - Evan Brengle School Days 100 Years in the Future Category 1 Winner by Ivona Glavinceska (Struga) Everyone knows that time brings up changes. So as time flies by, our life will change in drastic measures. Our homes, our cars, TVs, computers, even our schools won''t be able to stay as they are now. I'm looking forward to the future because I believe that life will be better then. At least schools will be more effective and the uneducated population will drop. Still with every change come a few bad ones. T begin with, the schools will be big enough so we won't have to go in two shifts. We will go o only in first shift so we'll have more time after school. The doors of the school will automatically open so there won't be any fights what so ever. The school bathrooms will be much cleaner and so will the classrooms. We will all have a school canteen where they will serve healthier lunch and we won't be able to eat chips and chocolate for breakfast every day. 6