Category: reflections

Today

Today, my twins turned thirty-three, and I have no idea when it happened 🙂 I even checked my calculation several times to ensure I was right!

Every year, on the day they are born, I tell myself and the rest of the world that having them was the best decision I ever made. Their presence in my life drove many of my decisions, which would have been drastically different otherwise.

***

This week, I listened to “Moral Decision Making,” one of the Audible Great courses. Once again, the lecturer explained that what Boris and I did thirty-six years ago was completely and unquestionably morally wrong—not like I didn’t know it before. But that was the best thing that happened to both him and me. Not only because there won’t be Vlad and Anna otherwise but also because even thirty-six years later, I smile each time I think about him, and he smiles each time he thinks about me. And this is the most impossible thing in the world, which never happens :).

***

Current Events On The Front

I kept quiet and didn’t want to jink it when things started to unfold last week, especially because even BBC was quiet. My friend Lena has relatives in Sumy, so she started to message me “did you hear the news” in the beginning of the week. At that time, her relatives experienced retaliation shelling from the Russian forces, and they had to shelter for over 24 hours.

When I visited Lena several days later, she said: I was hoping that now Russian people will understand something, but it doesn’t look like it! Unfortunately, I have to agree. Moreover, I am shocked with reactions of those few politicians who appeared to be normal so far. Now, all of a sudden, “you can’t be happy when your fellow citizen suffer” and “you can be against the current government, but you can be against people”.

I have no comment on that. None. Except for citing one more time late Frau Traudel: “Of course, we wanted Germany to be defeated!”

State Of Mind

First, there are a lot of stressful things going on in my professional (non-work) life, and I am trying to do two mutually exclusive things: still work on the issues that cause this stress because they should be resolved, and try not to think about them all the time because if I do, I can’t do anything else. Go figure!

Second, all the things going on in the world. I learned from my friend who has relatives in Ukraine in the area close to the war actions that Russian troops retaliated with severe shelling, which lasted for 28 hours. She was very scared for her relatives, and I can’t even imagine how she might feel.

And at the same time, life goes on. Our firm had a summer party today. I was glad that I could sit at the nice rooftop restaurant and relax, which I desperately needed during this super-stressful week. At the same time, I felt ginormous guilt for both relaxing at this rooftop and criticizing the limited selection of food while being aware of what’s going on in other parts of the world … I know it’s pathetic. I know it does not help anybody.

… this rooftop has flowers – right on the rooftop!!! They are planted around and separated from the rest of the floor by glass, and this piece of prairie on the seventeenth floor was one of the most amazing things I saw…

Surprise Visit, Planning, And Spontaneity

On Monday, I had a surprise visit with Anna and the girls. They stopped at my place on their way to John’s family summer house in MI, and I was overjoyed to hear that they were coming. I didn’t have any specific plans for that evening except for finishing several things I hadn’t finished over the weekend, but even if I did, I would rearrange them.

We had an amazing time, partially, I think, because of it being completely unplanned. When I told Boris about this surprise visit, he said that he was glad that Anna trains me in spontaneity. And that is something I want to keep enjoying.

At some point, I became too dependent on my plans and feeling unhappy when things are not going as planned. And while planning is a key to success, I always remember the day when I had my first ultrasound which revealed that I was having twins. To my gloomy: That’s a little bit unplanned, the technician replied: Sometimes unplanned economy can be very successful! She was alluding to the “socialist planned economy” v.s. “capitalist unplanned economy,” which made it especially funny. Yep, the most unplanned thing in my life was the best thing ever happened to me!

Nadia made a picture of an ice cream for me 🙂

We Live In Pre-War Time

Boris cited one of the BBC commentators about us “living in pre-war time.” That was when we once again, for the hundredth time, talked about “Western countries trying to prevent a full-scale war.” And for the hundredth time, we talked about pre-WWII times and Czechoslovakia, and attempts “to prevent the full-scale war,” and how these attempts “to make things better” ended up making things worse.

And thinking about last week’s prisoner swap and what we now know about how it is related to Navalny’s murder – it’s basically the same thing. People involved in this process from the Western side were trying to do the best possible thing and stay up to their values, and that led to the murder and to Putin going unpunished.

And I don’t know why I am writing this for the hundredth time. I have enough evidence of businesses making extremely poor decisions in favor of “this very minute profit.” I have seen it for years, and I have very little hope that things like this will change. Not even in observable future, just – never.

More On Breaking Stereotypes And Old Patterns

Last weekend, when we talked with Lena about breaking the eating habits, she touched upon breaking away from other things we were taught froman early age. She told me: since I do not remember how early in my life, my grandmother used to tell me that when I have a family, I should attend to my husband’s needs first, then to kid’s needs, and then to my own. And I can second her – that was a universal idea.

In addition, even though we had the same access to higher education and theoretically the same access to jobs, all of us – all female I knew – regarded their love life being more important than professional career, more than anything, Marriage was definitely the first priority since our early teens, and none of us could ever possibly imagine a happy life without marriage. At the same time, most of us thought that a woman should follow her husband whever life moves him, and that sacrificing all our personal desires, for “what he needs” was in our books of “being a noble person.” We despised those women who “chose their comfort over sharing their husband’s hardships.” That’s why my extremely gifted friend, who for some reason, didn’t consider herself a “marriage material,” got married right before graduation and moved with her husband to Baikonur (where her first child died in birth). That’s why we had a had time understanding what was so heroic in the decision of the Decembrists’ wives to follow their husbands to Siberia.

Actually, I think that we just spend too much time on our personal life and relationships (and who woud’ve thought I would say that!). That was another thing we talked about with Lena, and she seconds me. The funniest part is that my current high professional status is in a strange way a result of me being focused on love and relationships too much in my earlier life – this triggered a long sequence of events which resulted in me being where I am.

Life is the strangest thing. And I am not free from stereotypes, although I try :). My kids are better 🙂

Elpha Spotlight: 24 hours a day

I wrote one more blog post for Elpha community, and I believe that’s the first time ever I blogged about my timesaving strategies in English :). Honestly, I was shocked to see how long it ended up being!

We’ll see whether there will be any reactions!

Link to post

Being A Proud Chicagoan…

I am a proud Chicagoan. I love our city and I love showing all the best things to out-of-town visitors. I think our city is special and not like others. Being a proud Chicagoan comes with a very clear understanding that our city has many problems and that there are many things that are done better elsewhere.

That being said, there were quiet rumors that panhandlers and the homeless would be removed from State Street as a part of “getting ready for the summer influx of tourists.” When I was in the Loop on July 4, I realized that it was also “do not spoil the Independence Day celebration and do not expose the city problems on that day.” I do not know (and I would be curious to know) what it took to remove people from the streets, but apparently something was done. And I am not happy of that way of solving problems. Should I be? Should I be happy about the city looking less problematic than it is?…

Educational

Igor’s recent article discusses a now-high school principal who is a former immigrant student. As such, Julie Lam experienced firsthand the difficulties of navigating the American school system and is forever grateful to educators who helped her along the way.

A couple of days after Igor sent me his article, I caught the ending of an episode on BBC, where they talked about Finnish schools and Finland’s leadership in education. One statement specifically caught my attention. They said that if we compare the highest students’ achievements in Finland and the rest of the world, there is no significant difference. What is different is the average student’s achievement level.

Here is why I think these two are related. I often observe that recent (and not so recent) Russian immigrants, as well as immigrants from other authoritarian countries, judge American education based on the level of difficulty of the school courses offered to gifted students (because all of their kids are obviously gifted). I haven’t heard this kind of opinion for a while, but there are a lot of such parents in my current company. I hear a lot of conversations that are very critical of American education in general and Chicago Public Schools in particular, to the extent that “if they will close the selective enrollment schools, we are moving out of here.” Many of my co-workers enroll their children in the private school so that “they could have a proper education.”

I would be the last person to say that CPS does not have any problems. However, the American school system, with all its deficiencies and varieties that are sometimes difficult to grasp, is incredible. I want to say that it is a great equalizer, but there is much more than that. No other institution in this country is close to “equal opportunities for all.” Even schools that are severely underfunded teach their students important civic values, collaboration, and acceptance.

American schools make American citizens. Good American schools make good American citizens. People who scream, “Why do I have to pay taxes to fund schools that are not good enough for my children” are the same people who are upset with homeless people sleeping in their parking lots, panhandlers on the street corners, and unruly teenagers breaking the shop windows. And why don’t they see any connection?

*** (another one)

On Thursday, I visited the conference venue and talked to the event manager about the conference details. When I returned to the office, I sent a Telegram message to K., who is our Chair of the Talks Selection Committee and my good friend. She is seven time zones ahead of me, but I knew that she was waiting to hear the results of my meeting so that she could finalize the schedule. I asked her whether she could talk so that I could fill her in.

She replied that she was out with her husband for their anniversary dinner and that she didn’t think he would take it well. I apologized and put all of the details into an email, but I thought: my husband would take it well! I even asked Boris the next day :). He said that he would probably make fun of me, but he would definitely understand and wouldn’t hold it against me.

I know that that’s against all psychology, all work-life balance basics, and contrary to how happy families should function. But that’s how it works for us:)