Describe a happy event of your life.

You should say:

• what it was

• when it happened

• where it happened

I can remember many happy events of my life and out of those, I would like to talk about the event that I can still remember vividly regarding my success in the board exam. The moment I heard that I had been awarded a scholarship based on my performance in the board exam, I became the happiest man in the world. This was indeed a very happy moment for me as it is something I was looking forward to achieving and the news made my parents quite happy and proud.

I spent almost a month with great anxiety regarding my result publication. I started speculating so many things and many of them were negative. I could hardly keep away the tensions about my upcoming result. The result was so important that my college admission would mostly depend on it. I could not sleep well on the night before the result publishing. I think this is a common anxiety for students and I was familiar with this type of anxiety. However, this particular exam results game me more nightmares than any other time of my life.

The result was published at around 11.00 am and I found that I did exceptionally well. I was so relieved and happy that I literally shouted. Then I hurriedly came back to our home and gave the news to my parents. They were happy too. My father bought sweets and my mother gave it to our neighbours. I felt excited, happy and relieved. At that time I was about 15 years old. It happened in our hometown called (… say the name of your hometown…)

OR

In my face, I feel a glow whenever I remember the day I went to the International trade fair with some of my friends. That was my first International trade fair visit and this was such a happy experience that I still feel a great joy reciting the memory of this event. It was January 1998 and that time I was in my first year of college.

Until I finished my college, I was kind of a new-born lady, who had never visited any places without her places in her local area. After I got admitted into the college, I started exploring the world and the amazing things that invite people like us. One day I planned with my friends that we would visit the International trade fair. This might seem like a very usual and banal event for others but to me, that was a really exciting thing to do. Later on, we did as we thought and finalised our visit to the fair. After a break period at college, we escaped by the back door (As a side note, I would like to mention that I’d no previous record of escaping school or college before). We were five in members and we hired a taxi to reach the trade fair. There wasn’t enough space to sit on the back side of the taxi and the taxi driver gave a suspicious look at us. That’s why with a fishy smile we took the decision that one of us would sit in front of the baby taxi with the taxi driver. It was a funny decision but there was no alternative for us and we enjoyed it.

After a few minutes, we reached the fair and then collected the tickets. We were thoroughly enjoying everything we did at that time. We entered the fair and took a deep breath to ease ourselves. We were kind of overwhelmed to observe the vast area with hundreds of shops and stalls. People were all around us and we felt like somehow we have come to a fairyland. Wherever we went, I was feeling so excited, everything was totally new to me as a grown-up lady. We took lots of photos from different views, purchased few interesting things within our limited budget and roamed in the whole area of the fair. I forgot my usual area, boundaries and the same thing I do almost every day and felt a happiness that I missed for a long. We spent almost 4-5 hours at the trade fair and at last returned to our home in the evening. We returned home by bus and I was so happy that I felt like discovering a new continent

Follow-ups

• What do you think is important in achieving happiness?

Answer: I strongly believe that ordinary yet priceless things such as health, family solidarity and closeness, important people like friends who will always be there for you no matter what and job satisfaction can definitely lead to happiness. I am opposed to the belief that money makes everyone happy and replete. Although money and wealth are essential elements for human life as they help people cover their expenses, do things they want and purchase materials people want, I don’t think that they are the determinant factors. Furthermore, self-contentment could be another important ingredient for us to be happy. We can be happy with however little we have only if we have the self-satisfaction and self-contentment.

• How do you celebrate some happy events?

Answer: As I can remember, when I was younger I used to hold parties at my home solely with my family and relatives. Especially on my birthdays, my mom cooked my favourite foods and made my favourite birthday cake with chocolate. Now that I am not a teenager anymore, I go out with my friends and in some special circumstances with my family as well. For example, on my graduation day, I went to a Greek restaurant with my parents, brother and my five best friends and we had a really great time. Generally speaking, I would say that I am more of an introvert person, so I totally prefer to spend substantial time with a few friends rather than having many people and typical relationships. My happy moments and celebrations are also related to my friends and family members.

• What role the camera and video play in celebrating?

Answer: I would argue that these two tools, camera and video, play an integral part in different types of celebrations. First of all, most people have moments of their childhood and memories from childhood are captured in cameras. To illustrate, some of the most important events such as birthday parties, weddings, graduations and so on are included in these jigs and in this way the moment is captured and saved for a long period of time. Furthermore, as some essential and happy events are recorded, they could be used and displayed years later in order for some people to remember some significant events. A good illustration in my case is that on my 22nd birthday, my friends made me a really emotional video from all the years that we have been friends. Without the usage of the camera and video-recorder, this could never have happened.