How HSE Students Celebrated the New Year Holiday

A New Year brings fresh opportunities to start over, ride on it and make resolutions to achieve all the dreams we saw.  Let's review the best things of the old year and set goals for this 2022.

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New Year signifies new opportunities. Forget the failures and aim towards excellence. Let's always be with our dear ones on the journey towards success. 

Antonela

Duong Hoang Viet Ha

Sherzod

Le Thi Thuy Nhi

Lena Litovchenko

Yulia Kiseleva

 

Dear students, please introduce yourselves to our readers.

Yulia: Good morning. I’m Yulia Kiseleva. I’m 20 and doing my 3rd year in World Economics. I speak English and Spanish. Travel a lot and enjoy sports.

Ha: Hi everyone! My name is Duong Hoang Viet Ha. You can call me Ha. Now I’m in the 3rd course of International Relations at HSE. I’m in Viet Nam and I have been studying online due to the pandemic since March 2020. I’m waiting for the chance to come back to Moscow to continue my study offline.

Sherzod: Hi, my name is Sherzod. I am 21 years old and I am from Afghanistan.  Now I'm a 3rd year student of World Economics at HSE University. My uncle used to study in Russia and told me a lot about this place. That's the reason why I decided to go to the university here.

Antonela: Hi, my name is Antonela. I am 22 years old, and I am from Ecuador.  Currently, I am a junior at HSE university.  I'm studying international Relations here because from my young age I wanted to learn about relations between countries in the world.

Nhi: My name is Nhi Le. I’m from Vietnam but now I live and study in Russia. My major is World Economy.

Lena: Hi! My name is Elena. I am a big fan of drawing, but now I am a student of HSE University specializing in Advertising and Public Relations.

Could you tell me about how 2021 was to you? If you need to pick up 3 words to describe 2021, what would they be?

Yulia: The year was amazing. Half of the year I lived outside of Russia, studying and traveling.

Ha: 2021 was a nice year to me. 3 words … hmmm, 3 words: lucky, renovation and love.

Sherzod: Difficult, boring and a long year.

Antonela: I had the opportunity to be with my whole family and in my country. So 2021 was a happy year for me. And my 3 words would be - happiness, bad moments and stress.

Nhi: Let’s say: lucky, pretend, and opportunity.

Lena: I found a new hobby to spend time on. So my 2021 can be described as comfy, creative, friendly .

What was the best thing that happened in your 2021?

Yulia:  I was in  Italy, Spain and the US. That traveling has given me memorable and extremely interesting experiences.

Ha: I passed a super difficult subject last year and felt like this result is super worthy of my hard work.

Sherzod: My best thing in 2021 is probably becoming an uncle. I feel like I have become more mature and responsible. I love my nephew and look forward to meeting and celebrating his 1-year-old party soon.

Nhi: For me, there were a lot of things that happened in 2021, but if I have to choose only one thing, I would say it is to celebrate my 20th birthday on my own. For the first time, I celebrated my birthday without my family nearby. In march of 2021 I came to Russia to start my university life. Being 5283 km away from home, I spent my birthday night rereading all the messages and letters that everyone wrote to me and realized how much my family and my friends support me. Of course, celebrating your birthday far from home is not the best thing, the thing is I realized that I took 1 step inside  of adulthood, panic at first but then I realized I would be able to get used to it.

Lena: I got new hobbie! I started my steaming career and it makes me happier and much more sociable! On my channel there are a lot of streams of different games, also I show to my viewers different talents like drawing, sculpting and sometimes even karaoke! For my content I use a special 2D model, this kind of content creation named vtubing. My channel’s name is Froggy Tyan Vtuber.

Wow, it was great. And how about New Year? How did you celebrate New Year's Eve?

Yulia: Yeah, I did celebrate it with my family and grandparents. We had dinner together and played some games. We counted the last few seconds to welcome the new year.

Ha: I was with my family, we watched the fireworks and wished good wishes. However, welcoming the new year here is not so special because our most important holiday is the lunar new year. Also I facetimed with my friends all over the world to wish them a happy new year.

Sherzod: I celebrated New Year Eve with my friends in Moscow at my best friend's home, ate traditional Uzbek food, etc.

Nhi: Hmm New Year's Eve, there are tons of things to do on New Year's Eve for me, but I chose to refuse all the invitations to spend time with anyone. I cooked my favorite vegetable for myself - mushrooms, listened to some music, and watched some episodes of my top 5 series. Before that, I had considered going to the End year party or going to Red Square to see the fireworks or staying at home, and then I decided to spend the last day of 2021 relaxing.

Antonela: I made dinner with my family, in my country we eat 12 grapes. That means lucky, and also we made a doll with cartoon, paper and then we burned it.  This means clean up the bad, old things from December back to the previous time, before starting to welcome the new year.

Lena: I had a dinner with my family! It was the most quiet “new year”. We had a big Napoleon cake on our table. My mother and I cooked it the night before New Year! 

And how was your New Year holiday? Where were you at or what did you do?

Yulia:  I stayed at home and then went to the Volga river to hang out with my friends.

Ha: I went to local museums and galleries. I wanted to admire them before I leave. Also, I bought something and prepared luggage so that I can return to Russia asap.

Sherzod: I celebrated New year with my friend, the next day celebrated my birthday and the rest of the holiday I just spent to chill.

Nhi: I had a 10 day trip to hunt the Northern lights from the 1st of January 2022 with my friends. That was an interesting experience and for me it's a good way to start this year. We went to Teriberka village and Murmansk city with the temperature around -14 C but the cold is nothing to compare. Now I think I can survive Moscow's winter thanks to this trip. But you know what, my friends had positive results with covid test, so now I’m with them again, but we are in the medical center. I will be here to follow-up till 26 January even though my PCR result was shown negative.

Antonela: I was sick so I couldn't go out with my friends, I think that was sad. 

Lena: To be honest, I stayed at home this year. I had a few meetings with friends and watched films on computer.

What is your main goal in 2022?

Yulia: Good question. Let’s say to increase my overall GPA by 1 point.

Ha: As an HSE student, my goal is to complete all subjects well and have a positive year.

Sherzod: Learn some additional courses, which are good for my major. And maybe  start practicing my skills somewhere in a small private company.

Nhi: Since I study at HSE, my main goal would always be to graduate (of course until I graduated). I've just passed the 1st semester of my university life and I think I have to change my study routine to get a better score and health. So let’s say my goal in 2022 is to find a suitable study routine and stick to that. Besides that, I want to read more books, get fit and study more Russian, and other typical goals that I write every year.

Antonela: My main goal is to study abroad, travel to Asia, and live in another country.

Lena: I want to grow my channel and also have more catch-up meetings with friends!

Good luck with that. Wish you a great year.Thank you for your time!

Interview by

Nguyen Ha