anglu topikai

1. Personal identification

I’m Darius. I was born in 1978 on the 21th of February in Kaunas. I don’t remember anything about the weather that day, but I know that it was about 2:30 p.m. I was the first child in the family. Our family is not very big, I have a brother. When I was a child I can’t say, that I was a good boy. My parents always want me to be a good man, and now I’m vvery thankful for that. At that time I didn’t understand that my parents wanted good for me, and I made my mother worry about me very often. I think, that my character isn’t bad now and I’m a good, sincere and tolerant teenager.

In 1985 I started school and now I’m graduating it. I was good at all subjects. I am fond of school. I liked my class. I always felt like at home here. Everybody was so friendly and eeasy to get a long with. I was on good terms with my classmates and we always spend our free time together. I think, that school years maybe remain in my heart forever.

I want to say a few words aabout the future. I’m going to take entrance exams and enter KTU. I would like to study Computer Science. My parents are engineers – programmers and I like this profession too. That’s all about myself.

2. Services

Services aren’t important as food, drinks or home, but it’s enough important to as. One of them we use more frequently others we don’t use. There are many services in my region. There is post near my house. You can use all services that post can offer: to send a postcard, letter or parcel, make postal – order, to buy stamp or postcard. There are petrols where you can buy gas. Also there are hospital and police station in my region. Police station iis one of the unpleasant services. You get there when you commit something bad. If you want to do photos it’s no problem, because there are some places there you can make photograph. A Very important service for people’s beauty is hairdressing saloon. But there is only one saloon in my region.

Bank is very important for people, which have their own business. Usually they open checking account. But a lot of firms haven’t enough money so they take loans. DDiplomatic services are useful, when you are in foreign country or when you want to go there. And garage – service use people who have a car. Here they can check and put right their cars.

The most important services are hairdressing, photography, post, and hospital. So all services are very useful. They make our life easier.

5. Fauna

The Lithuanian forests have inspired many poets, writers and composers. They devoted their works to the charm of woods.

The fauna has no particular species peculiar to it alone. There are various species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. For various reasons many kinds or them became extinct. This fate befell aurochs, bisons, bears, etc. All forests can boast of the giant of woods – the antlered elk. Elk meat is exported abroad. Deer are less common. Roe and hares are abundant everywhere. Wild hogs, foxes, squirrels, martens are rather numerous. The number of wolves has shrunk. The beaver was entirely exterminated, but now it has been reacclimatized. Their houses are frequent on the banks of many rivers. New species of animals such as punctate deer, minks have been acclimatized. They feel quit at home and bear offspring.

We have 300 sspecies of birds. In forests we can hear voices of woodpeckers, cuckoos, owls, hawks and others. In rivers, lakes and swamps are various species of ducks, geese, and swans, where they hatch their young. In Neringa there is a settlement of grey herons, rare birds.

There are about 50 species of fish in Lithuania. We can’t boast that abound in our lakes and rivers. Bream, roach, salmon, eels, carps are caught. Salmon comes to our rivers to spawn.

6. Television

TV is one of the ways to spend our free time. Sometimes it shows good or sometimes bad things. It’s good, that there are some documentary films, which show us the life of wild animals, old civilizations, and the lost world. There is news, which inform us about the things, which are happening all around the world. Also TV shows some talk shows, where we can hear the interesting interwievs.

But there are a lot of violence and debauchery in TV films, even in cartoons. And violence has a bad effect on viewers, especially on children and teenagers. They can’t understand what is right or what is wrong and they think, that everything is true and start to copy everything aand to do the same things as „good guys“ or „bad guys“. So, I think, that there are more violence and debauchery in our TV programs, than good and nice things.

7. Museums of Kaunas

There are many museums in Lithuania. Lets talk about some of them – museums of Kaunas. Ciurlionis State Museum of Art is the national museum of Lithuania, founded in 1925. It operates as head office for 5 different museums in Kaunas. Devil museum is a part of the Ciurlionis State Museum of Art. It’s the only devil museum in the world and it was founded by professor Zmuidzinavicius. At that time, the Museum of Medicine Academy have a big interesting collection of skeletons, from fetuses to adults, also skeletons of cats, dogs and monkeys. It helps for students, who are studying Anatomy. It’s the only Anatomy museum in Lithuania.

Vytautas the Great Museum of War is the only war museum in Lithuania. There are gun collection and exhibition about the first two men, who flew over the Atlantic. They have connections with the Lithuania army, organize festivals for and about soldiers. The 9th fort Museum comprises of two different parts: the 9th fort

and a separate museum. The 9th fort was built at the end of the 19th century by a Russian czar to defend the Russian Empire. During World War 2 the fort was used to hold the Jews before they were executed. After the war it was used as a prison. In 1959 the fort was opened for the public as a museum. This fort is probably the cruelest concentration camp-museum in the world.

And for the end about T.Ivanauskas Zoological MMuseum. It’s one of the oldest museums in Lithuania. It has collection of stuffed animals, collected by T.Ivanauskas. It’s the only Zoological museum in the Baltic States, having a big impressive collection of all kinds of animals, nature sounds as background music.

8. Travelling

There are various means of travel. We can travel by train, boat, airplane, and finally we can travel on foot. First of all I will say what I think about walking. So, when you use yyour foot, of course then it is the cheapest way to get somewhere. But if that place is some 100 or more km. away, then everyone prefers a faster way of traveling. I agree that traveling on foot is good ffor your health, but just imagine that you have to go to another country and return using only your foot – I do not think, that it will be very healthy for you.

Travelling by car is the finest type of travelling. It’s noisy, not good for nature, more dangerous, but it’s fast, comfortable and easy to use. Ship and plane are very useful too, when you have to reach another continent, because usually it would be too wet to get there another way.

Besides all these means of transport people usually get their trip by trains and hitch-hiking. I think, everybody knows, how cheep it is when you spent money given by your parents somewhere else. So it’s nno need to speak about train. And the last way of getting somewhere from somewhere is hitch-hiking. Of course, anyone can say that it’s dangerous, but you really don’t need to go alone. It’s even more fun when you go together with your only-friend, girl friend or boy friend. So, I think, it is the funniest way to travel.

9. Traffic

In our town every other family has its own cars. Everybody is eager to have a car. It’s eespecially convenient for shopping. Sometimes cars help people when they hurry to the work or when it’s necessary to take an invalid to hospital. But cars cause a lot of problems. Cars poison our air with exhaust, shatter our ears with noise and the drivers wreck our nerves with dangerous driving.

In Kaunas center the traffic is heavy. Donelaitis and Kestutis streets are one-way streets and in those and other streets are many traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, but sometimes there are traffic jams and parking problems, because some drivers are careless and selfish. Many traffic accidents happen in the main wide streets, for example Barsauskas, Vytautas streets, because the drivers drive much too fast and they don’t pay attention to the speed limits. Also traffic accidents happen when pedestrians forget about road safety and crossing the road. But people aren’t afraid of traffic accidents and they keep buying cars, because it’s the fastest and the most comfortable way to get around.

10. NATO

The Baltic States’ admission to NATO is currently the most pressing topic in the Baltic. NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It’s a military alliance of Western nations for the purpose of collective defense. It wwas established in 1949. NATO’s member States are: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany (since 1955), Greece (1952), Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain (1982), Turkey (1952), UK, USA. Poland and Czech were admitted this year.

If the Baltic States support the program – „Partnership for Peace“ to the fullest extent, they will be admitted as well. Baltic military forces take part in NATO maneuvers and it’s a concrete benefit, as Baltic States want to be admitted as full members.

There are lots of different opinions on what is better for a small country: to be a member of a military organization or to be a neutral country. There are various advantages and disadvantages of both. It’s said, that preparation of Lithuania to join NATO requires from 8 to 10 mln. Litas. That is why it would be more beneficial to modernize the economics of Lithuania, than to spend huge sums of money on joining NATO. Moreover some people say, that the threat of war is only our imagination. For example, during the period of 1944-1953 lots of men were killed, but it was impossible to confirm the act of independence. Meanwhile, in 1990 the independence was restored without aany war or guns. So, it would be better to spend money on solving social and economical problems than on joining NATO.

In conclusion the opponents of „Lithuania in NATO“ consider, that Lithuania should seeks to be a neutral country. The proponents of „Lithuania in NATO“ suggest that joining NATO would confirm the stability of Lithuania. Lithuania is tiny country and the enemies can be too strong and powerful to fight with. So, NATO could help in case in the threat of war.

11. Social affairs

I want to tell you about the town, where I live, about Kaunas. Kaunas is an industrial town. There are a lot of companies, factories and enterprises in Kaunas, but they pollute our rivers and blacken our sky. As Kaunas is a big town, here are a lot of cars, buses, and they pollute our environment too. People, working in these factories, sometimes suffer from ill and die of various diseases, but they don’t complain, because they are afraid to lose their jobs. They have to support their families and money is very important for them. Nowadays prices go up and are high and wages are low in Lithuania. There are many unemployed,

poor people. There are a lot of children, who beg for money or food.

I think, that all this sounds very sad, but I hope, someday it will be better. That’s all about my native town.

12. Education in GB and Lithuania

Education is compulsory in our country. Children start school at the age of seven. They can stay at school for twelve years but some of them leave school at the end of the ninth form. These pupils usually ggo to vocational junior colleges where they can get both secondary education and the qualification. Education in Great Britain is compulsory too. British children start school at 5. They go to the primary school, which has two divisions: the infant school (from 5 to 8) and junior school. From 11 to 16 British children go to a secondary school. At the age of 16 schoolchildren may either leave the school or remain two years longer to prepare for university or ccollege entrance. Education is free; everybody can go to a university or any higher school after finishing secondary school. In Lithuania children go to school five days a week. The school year begins September and ends in the middle of JJune.

Education in Lithuania has been centralized for a long time, but now almost all schools have their own education system, but all systems don’t differ from each other very much: children study almost the same subjects in all schools. Schoolchildren can transfer freely from one school to another. At that time in Great Britain the education system has been decentralized for a long time and the school curriculum, the organization of lessons, and other things vary from school to school. There are two types of secondary schools: grammar school – giving education up to the age of 18, preparing pupils for university entrance and secondary modern school, which gave general education and some practical training up to the aage of 15. After a secondary school, a vocational junior college or a manual training school, children can take entrance exams and enter the university.

13. The School

School is a part of our environment from the time you are a little child until you are almost grown up. We hear very little of what the pupils think of school, and what happens to them here.

At school pupils spend the most important years of their lives. Here they take ccourage and confidence, make friends and learn to understand life. Whatever school years maybe remain in our hearts forever. Our teachers not only give us knowledge of physics, mathematics, history and ect. But they also taught us to love our Motherland, to be honest and hard working.

In the school I’d like the relationship between teachers and pupils would be changed. Instead of the teacher telling the pupil, both teacher and pupil would learn together, creating warm relationship. A school is a place where people learn together to live together and loved one another.

I like my class. I always feel at home here. Everybody is so friendly and easy to get a long with. I was on good terms with my classmates and we always spend our free time together. I think, that there can be an ideal school. Everybody has their own wishes.

14. „Saule“ gymnasium

I attend „Saule“ gymnasium. The society „Saule“ guided by prelate Olsauskas included several Lithuania schools, supported by the government. Just from the first days of it’s existence, the palace was used for various educational purposes, for teacher’s seminary and finally for girls school. Nuns were invited by prelate Olsauskas to run the school. OOur school was built in 1912. Students are selected on their ability to this gymnasium. They have to take entrance exams in math, Lithuanian and English. Only the best are supposed to be admitted. Our gymnasium has a good reputation, especially for math and computer science. It’s quite prestigious to study here. We have advanced courses in math and computer science. Our school maintains a high academic standard. The requirements are much higher than in any ordinary school. Our gymnasium is famous for its old traditions. The teachers and all the system of our gymnasium do everything under the sun to make study all the day round. There are a lot of good teachers, but most of them are sure, that their subject is the most important for the pupils. I can say, that I’m happy here and I need to prepare for university entrance, so I don’t know the better school for that.

15. Food & drink

Food and drink are very important, because nobody can live without eating and drinking. These two things may be a great pleasure. Of course, we have to eat neither too much nor too little. Foods that are eaten on a regular basis make uup a diet. Although geographic location and family traditions play major part in forming dietary habits, food choices vary from person to person.

Eating too much salt, sugar and fat can effect your risk of developing heart disease and raise the level of cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol is a natural waxy substance made by the body. It helps to form digestive juices. Eating too much sugar can mean that you’re more likely to become obese and that means a higher risk of getting heart disease. Sugar may taste good, but of course, it contains nothing but calories. Sugar can lead to tooth decoy. Eating too much salt has been linked with high blood pressure, which in turn can cause heart disease. Fast foods are major part of many people’s diets. Fast foods are often high in fat, salt and low in minerals and vitamins.

It’s important to eat more fresh fruit & vegetables, to cut down on salty snacks, chips, nuts, to go easy on sweets, chocolates and to use less salt and sugar in cooking. But the most important thing in changing your eating habits is to cut down gradually.

16. Smoking

It’s said, that

70% of young people smoke or have tried smoking. Well I think that smoking is a bag thing. It’s dangerous to us and to others. Smoking causes cancer, various diseases of lungs, throat. Doctors inform us about it, but smokers don’t pay attention to it. Youngest usually like to imitate the adults. For this purpose parents must no smoke themselves. Smoking is like illnesses, once try and you can’t stop. Smoking helps people to relax and they enjoy it. But tto give up is very difficult, and some people can’t do this without others help.

I think, that many smokers are selfish people, because there are many places where is „no smoking“ sign, but a lot of people ignore them. They do harm not only for their health, but for non-smoker’s health too. To my mind smoking is really not the problem of the person itself, but it’s also the problem of mankind. The person not only poisons itself, but hhe pollutes the environment also. So it’s better not to begin smoking at all. The life of all people will be healthier, especially of the young people.

17. Weather forecasts

I think, that weather forecast is good thing, but not always iit’s right. Sometimes forecast said one thing, but happens another. So, we can’t always trust them. I think, that people are interested in forecasts, when they are going somewhere or when they are going to make a party in open air. Sometimes people are interesting in forecasts when they have nothing to do and are bored.

In spring the sky often is cloudy all day long and it’s raining at intervals. The temperature is about 10 degrees over zero. But sometimes the sky is clear and the sun is shining and then the temperature rise up to 15-19 degrees over zero. In summer sometimes temperature is 25 degrees over zero and it’s very hot and sultry. Sun is blazing, bbut it’s good only to get sunburn. The wind is very wild in summer, because it’s western or southern. Sometimes it’s drizzling after that there are many puddles everywhere.

18. Seasons of the year

There are four seasons in a year. They are spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Every season is beautiful and pleasant in its own way.

Spring is a wonderful season. Spring comes and nature awakens from its winter sleep. The days become longer and nights shorter. The gground is covered with fresh green grass and the first spring flowers .The trees are covered with new leaves and blossoms. The air is fresh and sun shines brightly. Spring months are March , April and May.

Summer months are June, July and August. The weather is usually fine in summer. It is much warmer than in spring. The trees are green and the gardens are full of flowers. Everybody enjoys summer. A lot of people have their holidays in summer. They can go swimming and boating, they can lie in the sun and get sunburn, they can gather berries and ...