Month: January 2025

What’s Happening At Home

I came back last night, and now I am heading to work. (And I will probably finish this post after my workday). For those wondering why I didn’t mention anything happening at home and whether I’ve shut myself off from all the news, I didn’t. I was closely following the news. I just do not see much point in expressing my outrage without being able to do anything constructive.
When I stopped by my neighbor’s to pick up my mail for the past two weeks, she told me that she opted not to listen to the news for these two weeks, because “she didn’t want to get upset.” That’s not for me either. I need to be informed, and I need to make informed decisions.

During the past two weeks, many not-for-profit organizations where I am a donor or a member sent emails to inform me about the staff cuts and/or program closures. One of the most upsetting was the closing of four clinics of Planned Parenthood in Illinois. These announcements make me think about whether I should re-distribute my donations, which I already planned for that year, but I haven’t made any significant changes yet.

Today was a quarterly meeting of the Howard-Evanston CC Community Board which I am a member, and the agenda looked different from what was emailed to us ten days ago. All of us were focused on the report about the readiness to resist the ICE raids and protect both program participants and staff. I was happy to learn that we have counsel available to interfere with ICE during the raids and a law firm that can provide free services when needed. However, no matter how many times during the meeting the HECC Director repeated that we need to focus on providing services to our clients, it was difficult to focus on the future and to look at it with certainty.

We will try our best, and it feels good to see how many people think that way!

Prague Dev Day

On Monday evening, I flew to Prague to deliver training at the Prague PostgreSQL Developer Day. I used my full-size (10 hours long) PostgreSQL Query Optimization Training, cut out about 1/3 of it, and updated it with the examples from the book’s second edition. The preparation took way longer than I expected when I submitted this training proposal, but I am happy with the result.

It was a super-short visit to Prague; I barely was outside. I upgraded both my flights to business class because I have nine European upgrades, and I can only use them on Finnair flights. There were only two business class passengers besides me on the way there, and I was the only one on the way back 🙂

Salmon lasagna – I don’t know what Italians would think about it, but I liked it!
I chose the Grand Hotel International due to it’s proximity to the venue, but to be completely honest, it didn’t impress me, although I understand it’s historical significance.
At the entrance of the Department if Information Technologies where the event tool place
And if you are wondering – yes, there were only two female participants out of twenty-five
Together with one of the event organizers, Gulcin Jelinek

Career Success in Tech as a Single Mother

Since Elpha.com shut down earlier this year, preserving this post here

Career Success in Tech as a Single Mother: Forget The Stereotypesa(a copy of my post on Elpha)

Seen By Helsinki Railway Station

Suomenlinna

We made it to Suomenlinna (in search of the salmon soup, which, as we found out, is not being served on Sundays).

In Vanille Cafe, they still bake fresh pies each morning, and they are still the best in town
I resent not purchasing this poster!

Post-Christmas Helsinki

The weather was/is really miserable; it’s warm, but no sun, no snow, no nothing. Probably the worst I ever saw at that time of the year. However, still a lot of Christmas decorations up!

I met up with my friend Natasha, and we walked around a bit before sitting and chatting at the Fazer cafe.

The city is still beautiful, even with this miserable weather 🙂

More Pictures Of Valo Coworking

I posted tons of pictures in October when I worked in Valo for the first time, here are more.

On Friday, I was in a room in a different wing, and it turned out that there are more coworking spaces which I didn’t see before:

A view from the first-floor coworking space into the cafe. I love that you can sit anywhere, and there are electric plugs everywhere!
On my short walk
In the gym
Breakfast:)

Work-Life Balance

The coworking space I use in Helsinki does not expect anyone to stay later than 6PM. Although the contract says that we can use the space if nobody else needs it, in reality, the cleaners usually start kicking you out closer to 6 PM. Last Friday, however, there was something new!

I went for a short walk outside, about a quarter to four, because it was the first day I could see some sun, and I wanted to catch it before the sunset. The next meeting was not until 4-30 PM. When I returned, I couldn’t open the door to my room, although my magic button was working on all the other doors. In panic, I rushed to reception, and they said: oh, that’s because you already worked for eight hours today! How much time do you need?

I told them that I had my things in the room, and I needed at least another hour, or better two, because I work for an American firm, so they gave me a separate one-time pass 🙂

When I told this story to my co-workers at the zoom meeting, they had a good laugh and said that our firm should introduce similar policies!

Back To Work (In Helsinki)

Resuming my work at Valo coworking space didn’t go smoothly. The app kept saying there were no rooms with extra displays available, and even a room without an extra display was not available until 9 a.m. I made a reservation, but the room number didn’t show up in the morning, so I decided to go to Valo and figure out everything while I was onsite.

I arrived five minutes before 7 AM, and nobody at reception could tell me why the rooms with displays were unavailable. I knew I couldn’t officially claim my room until nine, but I also knew it should have been assigned by that moment. The next thing I realized was that since the room was not assigned, my magic button did not work for anything, so I couldn’t go to the gym or close the locker. The morning reception shift came, but they still couldn’t tell me what was going on “until Jarkko comes.” I knew from the last time that Jarkko could fix anything in the system, but he is not a morning person, so I couldn’t expect him to be around at 7:15.

Suddenly, a room with an extra display popped up as available on the app, and I grabbed it, but nobody at reception could help me to cancel the previous reservation: “You need to wait for Jarkko!” But at least I had a room, and my button started to work, so I hurried up to drop my things, change, and go to the gym.

One more change since last time was that the breakfast price went up; however, it remained the same for the tenants, so I could still enjoy “all-you-can-eat” for 10 euros. Also, it turned out that they had several conferences going on, so many rooms were converted back to hotel rooms, and all the staff was busy servicing the conferences.

On my third trip upstairs, I finally found Jarkko at his desk, and everything started magically working: my canceled reservation was credited back to my account, I was able to book the rooms with an extra monitor for the remainder of the week (“Try now, I added five rooms!”)

I remembered how to make the magic button work on the elevators and realized I could pour cappuccino into a ceramic cup and take it back to my room. I found a fruit bowl in the cafeteria and grabbed a couple of pieces for later. Life is beautiful again 🙂

Tallinn- Skating And More

I saw a skating rink on the way back to the hotel on Sunday evening, and sure enough, I wanted to skate. It was already close to 10 PM, so I didn’t do it right then, but I was hoping that they will open early enough in the morning. It turned out that they opened at 10 AM, and they had not only the skate rental but also all possible equipment, including socks and gloves :). I didn’t need them, so I just rented the regular skates. When I got on the ice, my first thought was that it was a mistake: since that was not an artificial ice, they didn’t do any resurfacing (although there is some “maintenance schedule”), so the ice was in really bad shape. Also, the skates were not sharp enough, and once again, my initial feeling was that it would be impossible to skate even for 30 minutes. I stayed just for the “check” mark – when else would I have a chance to skate by the 13th-century walls – and I moved very slowly.

Gradually, I started feeling more confident, even in the presence of grade-schoolers who were racing, bumping into the rink fence with full force, and immediately racing back :). I figured out how to manage on these bulky, dull skates and definitely took pleasure in the surroundings.

A view of the rink from the street
Continue reading “Tallinn- Skating And More” →