Everything Happens For A Reason

When I go to early morning escorting shifts, I leave the house at 5:50 – 5:55, so that I am on the train at 6 AM, but on Friday, I left the house just five minutes later and had to wait for the next train.

Also, my pro-choice buttons are always pinned to my escorting vest, because otherwise, I often forget them. On Friday, I just pulled my pink vest out of the closet to tuck it into my backpack when I remembered that we are now supposed to wear rainbow vests on weekdays, and the pink ones – only on Saturdays. I unpinned my buttons from the pink vest and almost put them in the pocket, but since I wore a hoodie with very wide-open pockets, I thought they could fall out, so I decided to pin them to the front of my hoodie (just until I get to a clinic).

So I walked on the CTA platform with my buttons pinned at my breast, and with the train just left, and slowly walked to the front. There was a young woman, also staying at the front, who passed me to throw away a can, then passed me again and asked, “Excuse me, can I ask you something?” I saw your buttons. Do you have anything to do with clinic escorts? And I replied: Yes, I am one of them! And I am going to the escort shift right now. And then she asked: ” How can I join clinic escorts? I wanted to do this for years, but I didn’t know how!” I told her: You need to go through the training, and then you can sign up for shifts. But before I connect you to our team leader, let’s talk!

She was a teacher, and she taught in Chinatown, so until I got off at Lake, we talked non-stop. She kept saying: I am so glad I asked! And I kept saying: I am so glad I had my buttons on, once in a year! We’ve exchanged emails, and I introduced her to our team lead, and she signed up for training. I hope she will be a good addition to our team!

But what were the odds?!!

***

My second cousin, my only relative who was still in Russia and with whom I communicated on a regular basis, passed away.

I was not notified until the day he was cremated, but it is what it is, and I can’t change it. But besides that, this whole situation is one big horror story. I do not have the mental energy to talk about details, but I will post more soon. It’s just something that appeared out of nowhere and altered my trajectory, and even though I already learned that there is nothing I can do (interfere in the current situation, where I have tons of concerns), I am still having a hard time accepting “nothing I can do.”

Swiftynomics by Misty Heggeness

As it sometimes happens, I learned about this book because the Chicago Public Library announced a meeting with the author. I knew I wouldn’t be able to come because it was the day we did the egg coloring at ODS, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to join on Zoom, but I also knew that the livestream would be saved on the Library YouTube channel, so I bookmarked it. I tried to put a hold on the audiobook in the library, but there were over 100 people ahead of me, so I purchased the book and started listening, and actually finished it before March 31!

If you just watch the video, you might get the impression that Misty is mostly focused on Taylor Swift, but there is way more to it in the book! She speaks about all the well-known things which other authors mention (and which I cited from other books), like the “opportunity cost,” and how women with small children still choose to work even if the cost of the daycare consumes all of their earnings, because otherwise they would decrease their future earnings and chances of future promotion. She says that although “ordinary” women can’t afford what Taylor Swift can in terms of childcare, traveling with children, etc., she demonstrates what things should be, and what every woman should expect from society.

Also, I like how the book is structured, how it puts things into perspective, connects the dots, and also, how actionable it is.

I am not saying its a must-read, but if you pick it up, I hope you enjoy it!

Two Prosecutors: Sergei Loznitsa’s Movie

I didn’t plan to go to any movies this week, but once again, that one was impossible to skip, so I ended up making time.

The film is based on a novel by Georgiy Demidov and tells the story of a recent law school graduate who learns about torture in Stalin’s prisons, and, believing that this is a plot against the Soviet state, tries to bring the case to the General Prosecutor, only to be arrested for this attempt (more details here). I didn’t do any research on the film before watching it, so I didn’t know who Georgiy Demidov was, which is why I was a little bit puzzled about the “target audience.” The movie is impeccably produced, the cinematography is brilliant, and no matter how much you know about the topic, you can’t take your eyes away from the screen. The story itself, however, was one of the thousands I’ve heard, so I wondered what was a reason yet another movie on this well explored and recently unpopular subject was produced.

Since the name Georgiy Demidov didn’t ring a bell for me, I looked him up. What I learned about him explained a lot, and everything started to make sense. He was one of these writers, who started to write after he became a prisoner of the Stalin’s regime, similar to Varlam Shalamov (with whom they were friends for some time). Then I realized that the movie is a time capsule projecting the view on what happened 90 years ago not from our current perspective, but from the perspective of people who were there at that time.

It doesn’t look like it’s easy to find books by Georgiy Demidov, but I keep looking.

Touring Chicago

My colleague from London just share with me his photos from our Sunday excursion, and most of his pictures are really great, so i told him I am going to steal them and share 🙂

Calls For Trump’s Removal

Posting this mostly for my friends abroad, because this kind of news somehow rarely crosses the border. That was yesterday, hours before the seizure deal reached.

From WBEZ, full text below:

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Current Events, Briefly

I have so many things going on, and so many things I am behind on, that I worry about them all the time, and barely posted anything here for almost a week. If I didn’t mention anything happening on any particular day, it means that on that day I came home from work and started crossing the things off my list; mainly different tasks, big and small, related to the conference and to the meetup, and kept doing it until late.

On Wednesday, I visited a potential new venue for our meetups. I liked what I saw a lot, but things are still in the making, and I do not want to share until they materialize.

On Thursday, I finally went to the early morning escorting shift after a long winter break, and then went to the ACM meetup after work. The meetup went well, although there were way fewer people than I expected (probably because we didn’t have pizza :)).

Then, it was Good Friday, which we have off, and I took a super-early train to Milwaukee (and I already posted about it). We had a good time there, but the weather was really bad both Friday and Saturday. I returned to Chicago on Saturday morning and walked to Lea to have breakfast there (I needed something to compensate for the cold and rain!)

Then I returned home and did the conference things until evening, almost non-stop, until it was time to go to see mom and to take her to Above the Law theater. I really like Above the Law, and they did great with “Cyrano,” but my mom was in a really bad mood and yelled at both Igor and me (and she kept doing it since then!)

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On Saturday evening, our co-workers from the London office landed in Chicago, and I took them touring the city on Sunday. It was still cold, but at least sunny and no rain, and it became warmer later in the day, so we had a great time overall, and I could show them a lot!

(They still owe me my pictures, so I will post more when I have them!)

And once again, I came back home from our touring day, and started emailing/discussing/posting to speakers, volunteers, and attendees, and it feels like I will never be able to complete all the tasks I need to complete!

All this week, there will be meetings at work, and a lot of collaboration, and I still need to execute on one million community things, and I am still nervious about all of them, and about not enough conference advertisement, and mom still yells at everyone, but I have no time to be upset about it!

Good Friday In Milwaukee

We colored two dozen eggs, ate tons of Finnish and Estonian chocolate, and Anna and I spent more than three hours talking non-stop (and found an amazing coffee place!)

LUMIÈRE, LE CINÉMA!

I am still unsure whether it was a good idea, but that was my typical full-blown FOMO: I read about this new film, which tells the story of the invention of cinema by the Lumière brothers, featuring over 100 original shorts, and I really-really-really wanted to see it! And there was not a single screening I could attend. Finally, I decided to do this silly thing: I got a ticket for 8:15 PM on Tuesday, hoping I’d be able to come to the Siskel Center after the egg coloring in the ODS. I decided that if the residents wanted me to stay longer, I would not go, but we were done coloring by 7:30, so I left around 7:45, and was at the Siskel Center on time.

The film was very long. The program said it was 106 minutes, but it was still not over at 10:10 PM, when I decided I needed to go, otherwise I won’t be able to get up the next day!

My other laments: in the clip, the comments are in English, but at the screening, the comments were in French, and the subtitles were white, which made it difficult to read over the black and white screen, so often, I would choose to pay attention to the screen rather than the story. I found the most interesting to see how they chose what exactly they were filming, and how exactly.

Here is the Siskel Center description of the film, and the trailer:

In one of those wonderful coincidences of history, lumière, the French word for “light,” was also the last name of brothers Auguste and Louis, whose brilliant invention, the cinematograph, helped to inaugurate the most beloved art form of the last 130 years. Institute Lumière director Thierry Frémaux uses LUMIÈRE, LE CINÉMA! to guide the viewer through over a hundred shorts—some famous, some forgotten, some never before seen—directed by Lumière and company. In the process, Frémaux illuminates how the brothers employed the camera as a creative instrument as they (and their operators) mastered framing, staging, and subject selection for quotidian and exotic microdocumentaries as well as the first ever fictional motion pictures. The result is not only a glorious re(telling) of the genesis of cinema but a profound meditation on the beautiful world captured—and the mysterious world imagined—by the Lumières.

Even though I definitely did not get enough sleep on the third day after I came back from Finland, I think it was totally worth it!

Egg Coloring At ODS

Same as the Christmas cookie decoration, the Easter egg coloring is an activity I do with ODS residents every year, and every year, we have tons of fun.

The most popular decorating kits are the ones with faces and hair, and also, the “golden” eggs appeared to be a hit!