Just returned from her second boost. And unsubscribed her from other three places where I originally put her on wating lists. Now I feel like I want to lay down and sleep :). Mission accomplished.
Author: Hettie D.
My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996.
I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future.
I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life.
As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.
Summer/Fall 1965
These photos are from the same films as the ones with Nanny Katia from the previous post. Last week, when I started to look at them closely and to do some minor editing, I realized the strangest thing: there were way more photos of Nanny Katia than I remembered.
I’ve mentioned earlier that my mom didn’t print any photos where I was together with my father. That way, I remembered way less of him than I should have. This film is not an exception. There are several photos of my father and I where we are playing ball. I think, he id trying to teach me some soccer 🙂
Red Parade In Chicago 1930
www.instagram.com/p/CMFypGNBe_y/
And we still don’t have 35 hour work week :((
Acting Like A Leader
I am listening to “Atomic Habits,” a well-knowing book, mostly building on the “Power of Habit,” which I read a long time ago and really liked.
As it often happens, you notice the closest ideas to what you are thinking about at the moment. This time, it was the well-known idea of “if you want to become something, act as if you already are.” To be precise, in the book, the author rephrases it like “do not say: I want to run a marathon, say: I want to become a runner.”
The reason I paid attention to this statement is the conversation I had on Friday. Among other things, I was asked about “things that work” with the Chicago PUG. While answering that question, I started to list all the things I usually mention when people ask me, “How did I build it.” I talked about having specific dates, announcing meetups early, starting on time, engaging the audience, coaching the first-time zoom speakers. And I ended my answer with one simple statement: I am a community leader, people are looking up at me, and I felt the responsibility to act.
And that is the most important reason that Chicago PUG is running regular meetups, one of the very few PostgreSQL meetups regularly running during the pandemic.
I vividly remember how I felt a year ago. I had to make difficult choices, and at that time, I was very unsure of what is the right thing to do, and I was questioning myself and my actions, and the situation was changing not by days but by hours.
First, I announced the change of speaker. Then, I announced the rescheduling. And two weeks later, I announced going virtual. I opted to be a first zoom speaker because I knew it could be a very miserable experience (and it was). But the important thing was that we were able to continue our activities and the PUG members responded with great attendance.
I am very proud of all of us, and I hope that later this year, we will be able to switch to the hybrid meetups:)
Mojo Coffee
I am so glad they stayed open when so many places in the city didn’t survive. I love everything about then, but especially their Mocha. Whenever I order anything, large mocha in included by default:)
Trying To Make Work Work
For over a week now, I am working on a slightly modified schedule when I start working between 7 and 7 -30 AM and sign off at 4 PM. Such a schedule gives me about 1.5 hours of uninterrupted problem-solving in the morning. It can be some complicated coding or thinking about some global questions, like how to modify the access groups or what should be done to enhance the system scalability.
I am not saying that I am not working in the evenings. Unfortunately, it happens most of the nights, but I have time in between, and also, late in the evening, it is somewhat quiet as well.
Unfortunately, this week was very frustrating. There were unplanned emergencies; also, I was trying to do one thing the right way, and it didn’t work, and I had to back up after spending almost twelve hours unproductively.
Finally, we are hiring one person for my team. Unfortunately, it means that I will need to spend time on candidates screening and interviewing, and most likely not finding anybody:(. The job posting was published today, and I had a storm of recruiters calls and no organic traffic… If it weren’t for happy things happening in my life, I would be miserable…
And Yet Again – Masks
I am deeply saddened by all the no-masks-and-everything-is-open in Russia. I resolved a long time ago not to argue with my compatriots about mask-wearing and do not comment on their posts about gathering with friends, visiting older relatives, attending theater performances, and such.
I hardly know anybody in Russia who did not have COVID. And I know way too many older and immuno-compromised people who didn’t survive. My mom lost lots of her friends, or her friends lost their husbands. And I do not buy these arguments that “they were old anyway.” I just do not understand how it proves anything.
On Saturday, Boris told me that professor Romanovsky passed away. He was the Operations Research Lab leader in our university, Boris’s boss at some point. I attended a number of his classes. Yes, he was the same age as my mom, so what? My mom is alive.
When I talked to Anna about that, she commented that the country reached herd immunity by sacrificing the older and immunocompromised population, and I have nothing to add.
Yesterday, I read a blog post of my friend from a small town in the Ural mountains. Her older son has severe cerebral palsy, and for almost a year, she is holding the fort. She wrote about a delivery driver who walked into her apartment instead of staying outside. I asked her: was he wearing a mask? For which she replied: of course, not.
It’s absurd. It’s worse than in Georgia.
Eternal Happiness
Remember how I said last week, that I made several important decisions, and I feel the happiest person because of that.
Well, today I finally started to execute on one of these decisions, and I feel over the moon. Just to be clear – it is professional :). But people who know me long enough also know that my worst moment and my happiest moments are most often related to something I am doing in the professions sphere.
The extent of my happiness clearly shows that at least this decision was the right one 🙂
Masks One More Time
I just finished watching this video about ethical questions and COVID vaccine One of the things which were discussed was a fact that not wearing a mask is a disrespect to everybody around you. I agree with this statement entirely, and that being said – back to masks in the gym. After I published that post, I went to the gym on Sunday and discovered the sign requiring to wear masks on the gym door:
I thought that having this sign is out there I will feel comfortable calling out the maskless people. But when the situation presented itself, I didn’t say a world. That kind of behavior does not make me look good, but it is what it is. I quite literally felt scared around these big guys!
Now, I need to decide whether I will be ready “to say something,” or I should just stop going to the gym till the end of March!
Spring/Early Summer 1965. Nanny Katia
No pictures from the first half of 1965, and once again, some pictures taken in the summer (from late spring to early fall). Once again, I am staying in Sosnovaya Polyana with Baba Ania and Deda Fedya. Mom is still commuting to work, 1.5 hours one way.
A new person is Nanny Katia. Katia was somebody’s relative “from a village.” The peasants’ slavery at collective farms was more or less over, and the peasants were not only allowed but were required to have passports. However, one could not move to another place on their own will, especially from a village to a city. Many of my relatives from my mom’s side still lived “in a village,” not because they wanted to be there. The kolhozniki (“collective farmer”) had neither enough food nor general merchandise available for them even in the mid-sixties, although they were no hunger deaths like in the 20s and 30s. Still, people lacked basics and were looking for opportunities to move to a city – any city.
I just visited my mom, and I asked her when Nanny Katia started to live with us and whether she was there when my father was still around. She said – yes, and she added that Nanny Katia slept on a camp bed which she would set at the End of the Hallway. That would make sense because it would be difficult to set up a cot in our small room. And that means that she didn’t hear what was going on.
I still think that Nanny Katia came to live with us at the beginning of 1965 or the earliest possible – at the end of 1964. She stayed until I started preschool (detskiy sad) in fall 1967.
Hettie's Reflections 