I can’t catch up with life. I returned a ticket for today’s Baroque concert so that I could catch up on my emails, personal obligations, and to finally finish the example for my bitemporal presentation (there was a bug which I could not figure out).
And life kept getting on my way! Yes, I found a bug, and I found a couple of emails which I forgot to answer, but it’s so little in comparison with what I need to do! And in the middle of me doing all this work, I heard a bang on my door, and my neighbor stormed in with a whole bunch of technical problems (her phone is not working, her facebook is hacked, and more). I do not think I fixed any of that, but at least she walked out being less upset and with some Austrian chocolates.
Oh, and guess what – I found my Bavarian witch, and she’s hanging out on my balcony!
My girls were here over the weekend, and this time, nobody got sick (although somebody was coughing), and we did so many things together! We went to the Art Institute, did many art projects at home, drew with colored chalk in the courtyard, and biked!
Nadia stunned me by riding her bike for more than nine miles total! From my house to the Lakefront Trail, almost two more miles to the playground, and then back. I am telling you – an amazing kid!
Anna learned about refugees from me, and she managed to help them in so many ways that I can’t even describe, As I already mentioned, I do not want to talk a lot about this to protect people’s privacy, but just let me tell you – it has become a family project!
I am very sleep-deprived, but I won’t change anything about these past several days!
so… I easily could skip this notification from the NextDoor, but I didn’t. And once I saw the situation the people are in, I could neither just walk away, nor drop some donations and check it done.
After one week of doing my best to help (with moderate success), I have a couple of statements to make:
It is awesome that we have so many organizations that help refugees
It’s ridiculous, that the refugees are not informed about them, and that there is no centralized agency which would direct them to the right resources
This whole system of affidavits is wrong, and I do not know how to make it right
Last week, I mentioned on this blog that I wonder why none of my Ukrainian friends ever told me that “I do not understand their situation,” and at the same time, most of my friends in Russia tell me that I do not understand their sufferings. Now, I want to make a similar statement. Why a refugee, who was a poll watcher, received multiple threats, had her friends arrested, and finally fleed Russia, why she is saying: Ukrainian refugees do not want to talk to us, I totally understand, after everything we did… and at the same time, people who are currently in Russia are saying: why the whole world is against us, just based on nationality.
Also, I am exceptionally thankful to Anna, who jumped in and spent a good part of her weekend her helping; to Igor who jumped in on the first day and helped in many ways, and to my next door neighbors, who donated not the things which they wanted to get rid of, but the items which were really needed.
I was completely out of social media for several days. And it’s not only because I am busy with things, but also because I am not sure how to write about these things, or whether I want to write about them.
In short: I am alive and well, deadly tired, and hopefully will be back online soon 🙂
Out of all shows in Lyric Opera which were included into my subscription, The Fiddler was my most anticipated! I read the reviews, and the interviews with the artists saying that “it’s not your mother’s Fiddler.” Since I really like the musical, and since I really-really love the book, I was sure it will be the best experience ever.
And it turned to be not exactly that. The musical is already a step away from the book, with reduced number of daughter, Golda not dying, and some parts of the plot omitted. But it still has a spirit of the book, and a very intimate touch.
The Lyric performance feels like further away. Way more of a “show,” way louder. The traditional Jewish melodies are modified beyond recognition.
“If I Were a Rich Man,” in my opinion, is something very different than this clip: it is a very sad song, and Tevye is no Samson. The orchestra is great, the voices are amazing, but it is not the story I expected to hear…
I am very tired at the moment, but I am overjoyed because in the past two days, I have had two big accomplishments..
First, I finally finished the build of a new bitemporal example for my October presentations. This is going to be my new bitemporal talk, and it’s for the first time that I built a full-size example (the data is forked from postgres_air and not published yet.
Boris helped me a lot with data cleansing, but I also invested many-many hours in this process. And when it was finally built, everything else was easy to add. I still need to work on the actual presentation, but now I have all material!
Second, I made a major improvement in my first project at the new job. I was able to optimize it to the maximum, and now I am confident that the performance will be stable for future growth. Friends, I know that all of this does not make any sense to most of you, but trust me, I have a reason to be happy!
I remember the post on Next Door I saw several months ago. The title of the post was “Refugees are here, and they have NOTHING!” The post described the situation in the Refugee center and how they need funds and lots of household items.
I bookmarked that post with the intention to come back later, to message the author, to ask what is needed most, and theт I didn’t. And I thought to myself that there are too many causes in the world, and I can’t address all of them.
What I saw yesterday, immediately reminded my about that post, because that’s how “have nothing” looks. I do not feel comfortable revealing details, even if I won’t mention any names, but let me say, I haven’t seen such level of desperation for a long time, if ever.
Rogers Park is the fifth best place to live in the USA, according to Money.com. Interestingly, if is the place with the lowest median household income and the highest unemployment rate out of all of the best fifty. I think this says that money is not so important after all.
That’s what they say about Rogers Park:
Few places are as welcoming to different religions, creeds or ethnicities as Rogers Park, an underdog neighborhood located in the northeast corner of Chicago.
Rogers Park is known as the most diverse neighborhood in Chicago, which itself is one of the most diverse cities in the country, and the result is truly something special. Residents often rave about the neighborhood’s multiculturalism and cite that as the foundation of what makes Rogers Park such a unique place. (Its walkability and easy access to public transit don’t hurt, either.)
Devon Avenue, for example, contains the entire world on just a few city blocks. Don’t believe us? Start at the intersection of Devon and Rockwell, an area sometimes referred to as “Little India.” Geometric patterns in yellow and pink pop off the walls of the adjacent South Asian clothing boutique. Head East toward Lake Michigan and you’ll waltz by Indian, Nepalese, Pakistani, Israeli, Cuban and Chinese restaurants serving up a variety of vegetarian, vegan, kosher and halal dishes.
Along the way, you’ll spot a mosque, a temple, a synagogue and a church — one of many signs of the myriad cultures that call Rogers Park home. Continue farther East and you’ll wind up on the campus of Loyola University, a private Jesuit research institution located on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Residents of the tight-knit neighborhood are typically younger and more likely to have a college degree compared to Chicago overall (thanks in part to its proximity to Loyola). Median home prices in Rogers Park, a hair over $200,000, are also notably lower than Chicago — and well below most cities on our list.
These days, I often think about what would happen to me if I wouldn’t come to the US. Suppose I would decide to stay, either because I won’t have the heart to leave Boris behind or for any other reason. Obviously, my life would be drastically different, but I am thinking more about what would be on my mind. Where would I be, and which side would I take if I stayed in Russia? It’s impossible to tell because all these twenty-six years made me a completely new person. It’s very tempting to say that I would be on the right side of things because of the “three generations of revolutionaries” because I was always a radical and “politically unreliable.”
But all these three generations of revolutionaries truly believed in Communism; they believed that you could “force mankind into happiness with the iron hand of revolution.” And I also believed in the communist ideals and social justice (one could argue that this didn’t change :)), just not so much in favor of the “iron hand.” I do not know where I would be, and that’s scary. We talked with Boris about how we didn’t feel anything wrong with most of the engineers working for the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of Defence Manufacturing. How we were very proud of ourselves, not caring how our ideas would be used. As long as the government was willing to pay us, we didn’t care. We were “above all of that.”
Now, when I read about Skolkovo and what projects are used now during the war, and how exactly they are used – why am I surprised? I was no better.
(Just realized that my yesterday’s post was left unpublished, so there will be three today :))
I saw on Instagram that the previous two weeks of escorting were brutal. My fellow escorts told me they saw up to fifty antis altogether (in shifts). The clinic requested police presents, but honestly, it was a farce.
Today was relatively quiet; there was only one group of four antis with an amplifier. The shocking part was that the police seemed to protect them, not us.
When a guy on a scooter shouted something in the direction of the amplifier, a police officer gestured for him to stop. When antis were done and packed their equipment, they shook hands with both police officers, and right after this group was gone, police left as well. But at least it was quiet today, so I can’t complain.
Also, it turned out that today was the 75th anniversary of the CTA celebration, and if I had known in advance, I would plan on taking a ride in the 1920s train car. Unfortunately, I was already on a tight schedule, but I hope it was not the last time in my life.
Hettie's Reflections 