Greetings to Dr. Vladimir Lizinsky

From the Department of Education and Psychology,
Moscow Academy of In-Service Training for Educational Workers
(Chair, Professor Irina D.Demakova)

The worst danger in creating birthday greetings is to repeat something that has already been written and said many times before. To create original words for such a humorous and creative person as you are is a very complicated task. What if while reading these words you would suddenly hear “our thoughts running away” —thoughts that do not go together and are not good enough?! But we really want to look unique in your eyes! With that said, we still won’t break with tradition.

Dear Vladimir Mikhailovich,

May we extend the heartiest greetings from every member of our department!

We love your rare personal capacity — to compliment everyone — although you have other rare capacities. For example, your preference to work today when everyone else is thinking about tomorrow.

Every meeting with you awakens our minds from laziness and disturbs our hearts — there immediately comes an “itch to work” and we really have to make an effort to stop itching. Let us confess, regardless of the words we are trying to create here we are still talking about ourselves. This is because we want to tell you how much we love you. We are happy because only with you we come to an understanding of not only others but ourselves as well.

We want to believe that you also love us forever. We are selfish enough to hope that due to our cooperation our department will remain the best in Russia and in some other close and distant countries abroad. This hope is based on our understanding that you are never chasing after any pedagogical fashion but you always keep faith with your own. Your style speaks for itself, it shows that you have a talent, you know how to use it,  you know how to be successful, and you have experienced success yourself.

We are grateful to our fates for the happiness of your friendship. But because we know that verbosity is a mental crutch we say only one phrase, “We wish you, we wish you, we wish you…” and may your happiness befriend your health!

References:

Lizinsky, V.M. Zapisky iz bolshogo chainika. – M., 2010.