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I forgot that I wanted to blog about this WBEZ episode, Comparing notes on sex miseducaiton .
It was aired at the end of March, and the name of it is very telling. The WBEZ guests discussed what they were taught at their sex education classes at school, and what should be taught. Absolutely worth listening!
Yesterday was the day of my Russian Consulate passport appointment, and at this moment, I am hesitant to say whether it was a good day or a bad day.
It went perfectly almost to the end. I managed to go to bed earlier the day before, so getting up at 3-15 AM was not horrible. Uber pretty much flew through empty streets, and I was at the airport at 4-30 AM. In eight minutes, I was through security (and had to wait until 5 AM for a lounge to open, just so that I could have breakfast). One more time, the AA lounge at ORD is perfect, and serve a high-end breakfast.
The arrival was on time, I took Uber to the consulate – it was way earlier than my appointment, and I asked whether I can come earlier. They suggested I come at noon (my appointment was at 12-40). I went for a walk, and I realized that I was just five minutes away form the Gugenheim Museum, so I went there (I had to wait for ten minutes for it to open). A big portion of the museum is closed for renovation, which was not bad, because I didn’t rush and focused on individual paintings. Then I walked around the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir, and returned to the consulate by noon. No line, no Russian TV in the waiting room, they took my papers, took my picture, and my payment in cash. Twenty minutes later I was out. The security surprised me saying: see, it’s even before your appointment time! Now you can relax, sit down at the cafe and have a glass of wine! I replied that I better go to LaGuardia and have a glass of wine in the lounge, and called Uber. There was almost no traffic, and I actually had time to relax, to order an exquisite cocktail and to make several calls.
The flight was on time, and when I took my seat in the aircraft, I texted my neighbor that I will meet her at the Lyric Opera House at 7 PM. Everything was still fine, we were going to land ten minutes ahead of schedule, and a flight attendant already asked us to stove away our laptops and fasten our seat belts, and the plane was already descending, when, all of a sudden, we heard another announcement: we are going to land in Milwaukee!
What?!
It turned out, that a sever storm broke out of nowhere, and it was so bad that we could not land! it was also very swift, but since we already landed in Milwaukee, it took us another hour to get back in the air, including refueling and maps reloading :). It was for the first time in my life that something like that happened!
We landed at ORD at 7-15, and by the time I reached Lyric, it was 8-25, time for the intermission. And I was in such a rush, that I didn’t even stop tp grab a bite to eat at the airport, and when I was already at the Lyric, there were long lines to all concession stands (and there was no real food anyway!)
I still think that there was more of success than not on that day, but it was one of the longest and the most eventful days in my life!
I was hoping for a bigger crowd, but there were just a few people who cared. As everyone who spoke at the rally mentioned, the whole world remembers the Haymarket riots and the fight for the 8-hour workday—the whole world except for the country where they took place. And fewer and fewer people remember the lyrics of “Solidarity Forever.”
…since no Google Translate will ever be able to decode this.
Email subject: Fwd: О прекращении сотрудничества, в связи с получением уведомлений об отказе в выдаче заключения в целях заключения образовательной организацией договора по вопросам образования с иностранными организациями (или иностранными гражданами)
What it was: an email to the University faculty informing about the termination of all collaboration with foreign educational institutions… (don’t even try to translate!)
The funny story is that although the title of that article is the one I mentioned in this post header, the URL reads “how-to-rest-more-effectively,” which sounds like a joke in relation to what this article is about. It says that not everything has to be “effective” and that one should learn just to rest, period.
I am glad that Boris didn’t see this article because he keeps telling me that I should sometimes “do nothing.” To be fare, I “do nothing” when he is around more often than at other times, but then, of course, I have to compensate for that!
I reread this article several times. Fine, rest should be enjoyable. What if the thing I enjoy most is crossing the things off my list? What if I do not feel good if I haven’t done anything meaningful during the day? Would you agree with what this article says?
Continue reading “TIME Magazine: How To Get A Real Rest”
It has been four days since the conference. After a complete relaxation on Saturday, I started to return back to reality, which included going through three hundred non-work emails and dozens of work requests.
A huge portion of my non-work emails was Postgres-related, conferences-related, or otherwise not-really-personal. I am still not through all of them, although I hope that I didn’t miss anything really urgent. Here is what I’ve done so far:
The things I still didn’t do and need to do in the next couple of days:
Plus, lots of biking (the sunrise is finally early enough!), lots of shows to see, and the full Chicago summer ahead!
On Saturday, I allowed myself to have a day of complete relaxation. I know that the description that will follow won’t sound like a relaxation to many people, but it definitely was for me.
For the first time that week, I had breakfast at home with Boris, and we took time, and talked, and I was not running anywhere. Then I took a train to the look to meet one of my peers with whom I wanted to talk but didn’t have time before or during the conference. I gave her a mini-tour of the Loop while we were walking to the CAC building, where her actual tour was about to start.
Then I returned home, and we had lunch. Then, we did a couple of small house projects and headed to the CSO. It was the first time that I booked a pre-concert dinner at the Thomas Club on the 9th floor of the Chicago Symphony Building -and we both loved it! Everything: the view, the ambiance, the food and drinks, and the service was just perfect!
As for the concert, it was something I never heard before! Both the CSO and the Jazz in Lincoln Center Orchestra were on stage, and the performance they gave together was smashing!
Both Shostakovich and Prokofiev’s pieces are more than well-known to us: most of them were often on the radio in the Soviet Union, but their interpretation was so unusual that we could hardly recognize them. Two hours of pure joy 🙂
Foto, travel, St.Petersburg, Stokholm, Tallin
aka operasandcycling.com
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