Category: reflections

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. 

One Of My Not-Exactly-New-Year Resolutions

A friend told me about a new fitness facility that she went to check out last week. There were a hefty annual membership fee and a lot of amenities available for that price, and she was trying to figure out whether the benefits are worth the money.

I asked her: do you want me to tell you my opinion? I am asking you because some time ago, I resolved not to give unsolicited bits of advice and to avoid advising in general. She said – yes, and we had a productive conversation. This exchange reminded me that I wanted to write a blog post about this big change.

Previously, I complained that when I blog about something that happened to me, people start to dispense their pieces of advice and suggestions. However, if I blog about something, it does not necessarily mean that I want any pieces of advice from the audience. And then I thought that I am often guilty of the same behavior. When I read something I disagree with, I used to be fast expressing my opinion about how people should think, feel, and act.

There are still plenty of issues I am not going to be silent about. I will never let go of any expressions of discrimination, racial, gender-based, or anything. I will continue to express and defend my political views, the ideas of social justice and equality. But I am not going to tell people who they should behave, what personal choices they should make and such. I will continue to write about my life, what I am doing, what I am thinking about, and why I make these choices.
My writing may be an inspiration for some people, and that would be great. Those of my friends who look up at me, who see my life as an inspiration, do not need preaching :).

That’s one of my pandemic thinking outcomes: let people do things they want to do the way they like it to be done. “My way” is not the only way, and even not the only right way. Yea, it should not have taken so long 🙂

Spring Mood

A week ago, I could not imagine seeing the snow disappearing in earlier than three weeks. But the amazing warmth and sun did their job. Soon, I will stop being jealous of my friends posting the first spring blooms 🙂
The only thing I can post at the moment is the melting ice, but still…

I am in such a spring mood now! There were several big decisions I had to make, and although none of them materialized in actions yet, I know what I want, and I know which way to go. And I can tell that that’s really what I want to do because I smile when I think about it and because I am calm and content. I even attended a yoga class online yesterday, something I didn’t do for months :). 

Reading Sophia Tolstaya Diaries

Some time ago, my friend posted several blog posts about Sophia Tolstaya, Leo Tolstoy’s wife’s Diaries. These posts prompted me to start reading.

It is a massive book; the diaries cover all her marital life, and at first, I wondered why I even started reading it and whether it is worth finishing. I never hesitate to drop the book if it does not feel engaging; that’s why my booklists end up being relatively short.

I had a completely different impression about Tolstoy and Sophia Tolstaya and their family life than my friend did. At some point, I thought that “I already got it,” and there is no reason to keep reading over and over about similar activities day by day, about the visitors, etc. But to my surprise, I found myself drawn to that book, and the more into the book, the more I got interested.

Continue reading “Reading Sophia Tolstaya Diaries” →

How I Feel These Days

There are too many good things happening! Unfortunately, at the same time, I have another wave of stress because-everything-is-falling-apart at work, but still.

Objectively, there are too many things going great. First and foremost, the news and politics feel surreally normal. I do not know how else to describe them. Something we dreamed about for all these long four years, and now that it happened, it feels like you are dreaming 🙂

Then my birthday, when I felt so loved by everybody, with all the gifts being so thoughtful, with all the conversations I had these days.

And then the announcement of the book and the postgres_air database! My LinkedIn account exploded! I want to check whether there are more reactions than on my Technologist of the Year announcement, but I think that’s true :).

Political

You might not believe it, but I planned to write a political post yesterday, way before everything happened. 

I wanted to write it because I read my very liberal friends’ blog post a couple of weeks ago. She said that Trump didn’t create any permanent damage to society. That yes, he was annoying and embarrassing, but it’s not like he ruined something. 

I didn’t want to comment on her blog because I am avoiding writing about politics in the Russian blogosphere. I am genuinely admiring her patience and willingness to talk to her blog guests, but I do not feel I can match up. However, I wanted to reply not only to her but also to other people who, at least until yesterday, expressed the same sentiment. 

From the beginning of Trump’s presidency, I thought that the worst thing he did to American society is that he gave this indulgence to people to be not civil. While society was changing and accepting more humanitarian values, it slowly became unacceptable to be openly racist. To be anti-LGBTQ. To be a misogynist. And here comes Trump and says: it’s fine. You can do it. You can be racist. You can hate other people. Moreover, you can say it out loud. It became so much easier for people to display the worst of them. 

And this will not be so easy to revert. 

And one more comment which is somewhat related to the first one.

I heard from many people, even those who consider themselves progressive, that they do not understand why diversity matters.

They say it when Biden is praised for assembling the most diverse cabinet ever. Their rationale is: people should be assigned to the high posts based on their qualifications, not on their race or gender.

Let me tell you why diversity is important, especially in situations like choosing the cabinet.

The truth is that nobody performs the country-wide search for objectively the best possible person to fill a position. There is a pool of candidates known to the president-elect, judged not only by their professional qualifications but also by whether the president-elect feels comfortable working with them. In short, even if candidates are selected based on their qualifications, the pool of candidates itself is selected based on some assumptions. And unfortunately, quite often, these assumptions work against minorities. They are being dropped from the initial circle of consideration. And this happens more often than anybody can imagine. And not only when choosing the cabinet members, but on all levels.

That’s why having a diverse cabinet matter.

I wrote all of the above before yesterday’s events. Actually, for over a week, I had this post “almost ready” and didn’t have ten minutes to finalize it. And yesterdays’ events only reaffirmed my opinion. 

How Much Christmas Costs?

ComEd sent me an email the other day stating that I am trending towards a high electric bill. Not super-high by their projection, but higher than the bill for the same period last year.
No wonder :). I was at home all December since the city officials asked us not to go in without the pressing need. And my Christmas tree and other indoor lights were lit up all day long for the whole month! The baking was more or less as usual in December :).

Still, I started to think about whether I should include my higher electric bill in my Christmas expenses. I started to track my Christmas expenses separately several years ago. My friends are aware of my smart Excel worksheet, which allows me to track my spendings and monitor the trends.

I have been doing it for so many years; I can’t even remember. But the idea of tracking all Christmas -related expenses through the year is relatively new in my personal finances. It’s not just presents and wrapping and Christmas decorations. It is also extra baking supplies, and my insane postage, and boxes for cookies. And more food. And buying Christmas chocolates in October. And in normal years, Christmas shows. And extra charitable donations. Since I started recording my Christmas expenses, I learned that they occur almost every month, with the bulk being obviously in November-December. I spend around 4.5 K on Christmas each year. That does not mean that I am a compulsive Christmas shopper, and it does not mean that I am looking to reduce these expenses. That’s budgeted every year, and every year, I reduce other expenses in December to accommodate this spike. Since I am not exactly a miracle worker, it costs money to have miracles happen, and I am happy to invest this money into the Christmas magic.

It is sad when people say that “this money could be used for some much-needed items.” It is sad that for several years now, we are not allowed to gift something nice to the adults in our “adopted families” and are asked for gift cards instead – I would be happy to do both. Adults need magic, same as kids :).

While I have the means, I will continue to do what I am doing now: being Mrs. Claus for many people all over the world.

Rules and What’s Not

Mom is keeping asking me what is allowed and what is not allowed. She asked about me going/not going to the office since last week, about my volunteering, and pretty much about everything I am doing. 

Somehow it is hard for me to explain to her that even if something is not prohibited, it does not mean you should do it. I tried to cite what the governor said: if you do not have to do that – do NOT do that.

The same thing often happens when I talk to people from Russia. Quite often, it’s a question: are you allowed to do this and that? 

And it is hard for these people to process my answer: it is not forbidden, but you should use your best judgment. 

I meant to write about it for a while. It is such a small thing that each time I would stop and decide against writing about it… Now I did, and I am still not sure how to explain why such behavior bothers me. It’s simply that you can govern people through each and single step; they should be able to make their own decisions. If they do not understand why specific behavior is the right one, you can’t expect them to adopt such behavior. Just saying

About the Past Several Days

These past several days were not the best days of my life. On Wednesday, we learned about the stay-at-home advisory, first for Chicago, and the next day – for Cook County. The case numbers raised alarmingly. A couple of days before that, we already discussed with Anna their most-likely-not-coming for Thanksgiving. And the question was not even about what officials were saying, but about the number of cases themselves. It is evident that the tough decisions had to be made, and it was so sad.

I do not doubt the necessity of all the measures; it’s just devastating that we need to go in this direction again.

On Wednesday evening, I went to do my nails; there was no call for the nail spas to close, but still, I was the only client at 5-30 PM.

On Thursday, I went to the office, primarily because I wanted to take home some food which I left there. Also, I wanted to do one more tour of the city before we part for a while again.
There will be no activities in the ODS, and our forest preserve volunteering is also postponed till mid-December.

It took me a while to go through all of these emotions. Plus, I was so preoccupied with these emotions that I could hardly be productive; meanwhile, the work which was not done continues to pile up.

I feel better now, and I finally put myself through all these, “yet another time.” Hope-hope-hope, it will be better, I mean, I will feel better:). It’s just so hard…

What Finland Has To Offer

My daughter sent me this link yesterday. She commented that one of her friends considered it as a backup plan if Trump would win. As for that statement, both she and I agree, that fleeing the country in difficult times is not right, and if Trump would win, we would stay here to fight.

But I also agree with her, that is is an example of excellent marketing, and moreover, both she and I know that it’s all true.

I am not saying I will never ever move to some other country; after all life proved I can’t ever make the “never” promises, but one thing I am sure about: I will never ever move somewhere for pure economic reasons. I like a lot of things in Finland, and I want many of them to happen in the United States, and I will work on making them happen here. At least now, there is ahope that some of thet will be possible:)