Category: everyday life

“The Pioneers of Computing” Talk

Reblogging from my professional blog

Hettie D.'s avatarThe World of Data

Last week, I attended several online events, way more than I usually do. One of them was sponsored by the WIE (Women In Engineering) Group of IEEE Chicago section. I am an IEEE member, and I used to be more active in the group than I am now. As with many other things, I hope that I will be able to participate more in the future.

The talk, which was presented on Thursday, was called “The Pioneers of Computing and The Imposter Syndrome,” and it was about women pioneering programming and computer science. Everybody knows about Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, and several other female figures in the world of programming. But I didn’t know that at the dawn of programming as a profession, it was considered a “girls job.”The talk was presented by Anne Lee, Nokia Bell Labs Technology Strategy and Architecture CTO Partner. She made it clear that…

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Eyes Update

There’ve been too many of them recently, which I hate. But so far, it seems that posting these updates here proved to be the fastest way to let my close friends know what’s going on. So here it goes.

My next eye surgery will be on Monday, and I am pretty upset that I was not provided enough information about the surgery itself, why it is necessary, how I should prepare for it, and how the recovery will look. 

I went to the retina doctor on Wednesday, when through several tests, the doctor came in, looked at the test results, and said: OK, you need surgery. I still do not understand why that rush, and what would happen if I won’t have it. Turned out, that I need this surgery on both eyes, not just on my left eye. Since I live alone and need to take care of my mom, I was asking what my limitations will be after the surgery. When I asked a nurse a week before that appointment, she said, that it will be “pretty much like cataract surgery, ” same restrictions for a week. When I asked the doctor on Wednesday, he said that I could “drive from the surgery,” which is not true, because they never allow it. His nurse said that “there are no limitations,” which is not what I read online, and I find it hard to believe. 

That was on Wednesday. On Thursday, a lady from the Day surgery center called and said that I need to take a COVID test and that it has to be done at their location. I just received a self-testing kit because I agreed to participate in the research, but they said – no, they need the test to be performed in their facility. I can’t drive that far by myself, and I can’t take Uber to the testing site, for obvious reasons, so I had to ask Vlad. Vlad told me he would come on Friday, and I called back to set up an appointment. I was very upset about the situation. They told me nothing about the test when they gave me a surgery date, and it was very time-sensitive. It had to be completed before surgery, and it is valid for only 72 hours. That left Friday being the only option. The testing site is open from 9-30 to 2-30, and these days we have summer hours on Friday, and I hated to take time in the middle of the short day. 

After I got tested, they gave me a paper saying I have to self-quarantine from now till the time of surgery. Imagine, you are asked to self-quarantine for three days with zero notice! Good thing I took mom shopping in the morning before I started work! Now I am afraid they will tell me to self-quarantine after the surgery! Hopefully, the next surgery will happen within the next week. 

I completed my online check-in on the hospital web site at the patient portal, and I saw yet another set of post-surgical instructions, different from the other two. Also, when the nurse called me, she asked about my ongoing medications and told me I need to stop taking multivitamins. Today, when I ready my personalized instructions for pre-surgery, they said: stop taking any vitamins or supplements with fish oil two weeks before the surgery.

At the moment, I am officially upset!

Supporting Local Business

Copying here an Instagram entry from last week: my t-shirt which I ordered as a part of supporting local business (Vanille Chicago) has arrived. And that was a reason for me to bake some frozen croissants which I ordered from them a couple of weeks ago.

Deers and Butterflies

Some pictures from the forest preserve, the beauty of nature.

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It’s a Girl!

My second granddaughter was born today! Her name is Kira, and she is a big girl 🙂 I have no idea when I will be able to see her in person, but I saw her on google hangouts today.

I think she looks a lot like Anna!

The Education of an Idealist: a Book Review

Now, that I finished The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power, I want to write a proper review, not just a short note.

I loved everything about that book! First of all, I loved the writing style. The book is written in a very personal way, yet it talks about the most critical global problems, about the historical event which shaped the past and present of our country and the world in general. And Samantha’s personal story is intervened with the history at large in such a natural way that I can’t even imagine that story to be told differently. If I would ever end up writing my own story, that’s exactly how I would want it to sound :).

Samantha Power has been in all the places where history has been happening in the past twenty years. If she were not physically present there, she would still be deeply involved with the issues. Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, Syria, working for Obama’s first presidential campaign, working in the White House, being the US ambassador to the UN, trying to resolve Russian – US issues, staying for LGBT rights – and wherever she goes she remains true to herself.

Reading this book, I understood more of the background of some actions or absence of those; for example, now I know why Obama was avoiding calling Armenian genocide a genocide.

Another thing I love about that book is how she talks about being a mother and being in public service, not sugar coating the problems, but making it clear that all the sacrifices were made consciously, and she would never decide differently.

I have to mention the hilarious episode from this book; it was so funny that I laughed out loud while listening. Samantha asked her stepfather to babysit when she was called for some White House duties on a short notice. Her stepfather started to panic when he could not find the milk to feed the baby, and Barak Obama saw Samantha on the phone, trying to calm down her stepfather. Obama took the phone: Eddie, that is the President of the United States speaking. Eddie, you can do it!

I might later come back and write more, but for now, I am finishing this review with the conclusion that this is one of the best books I read in the past year.

Border Control

We were waiting for the next announcement of the changes in the border control restrictions (they are updated monthly, after the EU updates). We hoped that some traffic through the external borders would be finally allowed, but unfortunately, there were no changes in our favor. It is especially frustrating because many restrictions were lifted at the internal border, including even “traveling for romantic reasons!’ But nothing for us!Also, I called our border control to check how travel would look for Boris, and they were not super helpful. Apparently, “airlines should know” what to check, but airlines do not :).

When I asked whether a person can leave the US before the 14 quarantine days are over, they said they do not know, and can I please call CDC. Although I understand that CDC has nothing to do with border control, I called. They said that “they only have a president’s proclamation, and nothing else.” And that they have no idea, and I should check with the border control :). Beautiful. I informed them that the border control sent me into the opposite direction 🙂

Summary: nobody knows, and it will take months to have the things closer to normal.

Today Was a Special Day

Today, it was Boris’s 70th birthday. Needless to say, we had very different plans for that day than how it turned out. I would be OK if Boris would say he does not even want to mention it and would rather have a day as usual. But when we talked at the beginning of the week, I felt that he would not mind if I would make it special. 

We have a very long lasting tradition of dark red roses, which he said, “would not be possible that time.” Granted, I got out of my way to find a flower delivery in Helsinki:). The most difficult was to find a vendor who would allow to pick the flowers I needed, instead of suggesting one of the existing arrangements. And another challenge was to switch between translating into English and not because the actual ordering and payment pages had to be displayed in Finnish when I was filling them in.

I took a day off today. Since we have “summer Fridays,” I only had to take a half-day. I used it to run most of my errands (shopping is great on Friday morning, the stores are almost empty). And also, that way we could talk during the day. We decided to have a meal together; it was an early lunch for me, and a dinner for him. I bought a rose of the same color so that our roses could talk to each other.

Also, I baked a rhubarb and strawberry pie. Same as with quiche, that’s something we both like, but since my unsuccessful experiments over thirty years ago, I thought that I would never master that skill. But then I saw that recipe, looked up a couple of other suggestions on how to make a rhubarb filling, used pre-made crust, and gave it a try. 

It didn’t turn out exactly as I wanted, I should not have reduced the amount of sweetener in the filling, but I will know next time. Adding some corn starch was a great idea, though. 

I have to add that rhubarb is very popular in Estonia, contributing to our love of that treat. And next time, it will be perfect 🙂

Eyes Update (More to Come)

Yesterday, I went to the eye clinic for the second implant film removing (for the right eye). As with everything else, the right eye feels tons better than the left one. I feel like the procedure took less time, and less film was removed, and there are less floaters.  

Also, this time I asked whether I can wear contacts in between drops. Last time I agreed with the doctor that I do not want to take in and out my contacts four times a day, and I didn’t think it will be that restrictive to go for a total of two weeks with glasses only. But it turned out that in this case, I need to use two glasses at the same time way too often. Also, I realized that since one drop is in the morning, and one before bed, I only need to take the contact out twice, not four times:). So I switched back to contacts, and now I can tell that, indeed, I can see better after the film removal! 

What’s next. I am going to the retina doctor on Wednesday. Presumably, he will set up a date for surgery, which likely, will be soon. I asked for more details about that surgery. The nurse told me that in terms of restrictions, it will be similar to the cataract surgery, the same no bending-no lifting for a week, which, as I already know, is translated into two. 

Then, it will be the day after surgery follow up, and the second follow-up in a week. At some point, I need to finally get the right prescription for my glasses, but my regular eye doctor is still out. 

I hope it will all be over in a month because I am so tired of being in this or that surgery all the time! Theoretically, I still need to decide whether I want to do Lasic to correct residual near-sightedness, but I was on and off on whether I want to go for it. Also, this whole thing started when I tried to fix my double-vision, so I should return to where I’ve started :), because the double-vision is still there. And if I will go for all of the above, it might be not over until the end of the year!

Quarantine Activities, and What is Not.

During the past three months, people often talked about new activities they engaged with during the quarantine. Many shared their new hobbies; people were posting about classes they were taking online, about learning new languages, cooking the restaurant-quality dishes at home, baking their bread, taking virtual tours, you name it. 

Other people were posting that they did not understand why some people take classed, learn new languages, baking their bread, etc. 

As for me, no doubt, I explored some new activities during that period of isolation. And now, when more and more of my usual activities return, I was wondering which of the new ones will stick. 

It looks like not that many. From the beginning, I didn’t like many of the virtual activities other people enjoyed. I whole-heartedly hate all the virtual travels and virtual museum tours. Maybe, it’s because when I was a child, only televised travel was available. Or, perhaps, because I know how far from experiencing the art in real life, all those virtual tours are. I even tried to click a link for the museum activities a couple of times and confirmed that I hated them indeed. 

Also, I never took online classes except for required work-related training, and I didn’t feel like the quarantine is a reason to change that. 

Another “no” was, surprisingly, virtual group classes. The office fitness center was offering an enormous number of different fitness classes, as early as at 6 AM, as late as 9 PM, weekdays, and weekends. 

At first, I was quite enthusiastic about them and quickly signed up for some. But after just two classes, I realized that that’s a waste of time for me. I am very good at exercising on my own, and if I need instructions, I prefer them on a one-on-one basis, except for some yoga classes, which produce a lot of spiritual energy. 

First, it seemed to be a shame to have such a variety of classes online for no extra cost, and not to use them. But why should I do these classes, if I didn’t enjoy them before? I resolved to stop “making” myself participate in online classes instead of doing what I was always doing. Now I have one personal training session a week with my old instructor and one individual yoga session with my old yoga teacher. And I am doing everything else by myself, at times which work for me. 

During quarantine, I did more online movie watching than before, a lot of them – with Igor. However, it looks like when my normal-usual activities are picking up, that online movie watching is going away. It becomes less important, and all of a sudden I do not have time for it 🙂

Like many others, I started to bake more. Not cooking, I always cooked all or most of my meals; I tried new things, like quiche, but it can also be considered baking :). As for baking, I tried a lot of new recipes. I think that very few of them will stay with me. With some, I tried them just to prove that “I can do it,” that it’s not rocket science, and I am happy I did. But many will become “one -time recipes.” 

We are not over with quarantine. We are not done with a pandemic. But I am thrilled with volunteering opportunities that are now available, and waiting for more to open.