Category: reflections

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:)

***

A couple of days ago, I finally met with my former colleague – iI can’t say that we lost touch, but it had been a while since we met in person. We made plans multiple times, but it took a while for these plans to materialize. We finally met this week, and we had a lot to talk about, both professionally and personally. While we shared what had happened to both of us during the past several years, he said: I always admired how you can be passionate about several things at once. I can be passionate about my job; I know how good it feels, but the moment I start to be passionate about something else, a political cause or a personal project, my job becomes “just a job.” I do not know how you can do what you do – care about multiple things at the same time.

It was an interesting observation – I never thought about it, or rather it never occurred to me that this is an exceptional quality, but I started to think about it, and I had to agree – many people I know have only one big passion in their lives. And then, they can’t understand why I am not 100% focused on a project that I am doing together with them, because they can’t imagine that for me, it’s one of many things I am doing.

I am not saying that I am right, and doing multiple things instead of focusing on one cause and supporting it with all resources might not be the best idea. It just reflects who I am. I have a difficult time saying “no” to new potential experiences and opportunities to make the world a better place. And I do not want to sound pathetic 🙂

RIP

Simon Riggs is gone. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sam-holdstock-marshall-76365b45_it-is-with-a-heavy-heart-that-im-sharing-activity-7178702287740022784-X0FI/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

God takes the best, all I can say. I admired him for many years, not only as a professional but also as a person of great integrity. I was fortunate to know him. That’s the void that can’t be filled.

I just realized that I didn’t click publish when I wrote this first paragraph. Eulogies were coming for the rest of the day. Though I understand that everbody wanted to say something, after several hours of checking LinkedIn I felt very close to how I felt on the day when Melody Lord died. I could not bear listening on the radio and the top of each hour “Melody Lord died…”

I made a mistake of checking all updates which were posted on Postgres Telegram channel, so I first saw the BBC news about the crash and later, The Sun publication. That latter one had too many graphical details about the crash – as it turned out, one of the visitors of the Imperial War Museum was filming…

Being Black

The Back History Month is officially over, but my mind is occupied by conversations I had recently.

For our Black History Month event in the firm, we had a panel with Nwabueze Phil-Ebosie, the Director of Engineering at ComEd. He came to the US from Nigeria when he was seventeen, and after obtaining a degree in Engineering from Perdue, he worked at ComEd for his entire career. He talked about his experience of coming to the US from a place “where everybody looked like him,” to a very different environment. The moderator’s questions were mostly about the challenges our guest experienced during his career at ComEd, and about what needs to be done to attract more Black talent to Engineering, and how to create the environment that foster innovation. Then there was time for questions from the audience, and many of them were more pointed.

As it often happens, I was an icebreaker, asking him how he keeps himself opened to new ideas working at the same organization for eighteen years (later I got the mike twice, asking about the fear of failure which accompanies any innovation and about starting to engage into STEM earlier, in the middle school the latest). Then other people started to come with their questions, and very soon the most important question came up: How you deal with hostility? Phil-Ebosie said that in the beginning of his career he it often about choosing his battles, and often times choosing focusing on work and ignoring hostility, but now he would not tolerate hostility and would calls things out. One of our coworkers asked whether wouldn’t it be that if he won’t be silent in his earlier days, he won’t rise to the position where he is now, and won’t have the power to call the hostilities out. He replied that he just thinks that now is the time, but I think that the person who asked was not convinced.

I was not convinced either, especially having several conversations with before that night, and after the meeting was over, we all moved to the cafeteria and the conversation continued. I do not want to share personal information which people related to me, but many stories shocked me, even though I consider myself to be “informed on that subject.” The scariest part is that many things you would have thought are the things of the past, are happening right now. It makes me angry when I hear that Black people state that they understand that the passerbyes think about them as a thread, as “big Black man,” and ll these things. Again, i do not want to dig into personal stories, but OMG! Even at school, even among neighbors… I am aware that there is very little I personally can do, but I can’t sit still and do nothing. At least in my little corner of the world, I want to make a difference. I am not the right person for that, as people mentioned that there should be conversations, and can’t be rushed, and we should find common grounds, and yes, it takes time…

Russian Music And Navalny

There is no connection between these two subjects except for the timing. On Tuesday, my neighbor and I were at the Chicago Symphony concert for the all-Russian (except for one Finnish piece) concert. The conductor was Hannu Lintu, and I didn’t like him. I didn’t hear any of his personal interpretation of either of the pieces. Yes, all the pieces were very well-known, but when Riccardo Muti conducts Tchaikovsky, it’s always a discovery, a revelation. The piano soloist was from Uzbekistan, and although his technique was excellent, he also didn’t add anything of his own vision to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Yes, this piece was so often performed in the Soviet Union that I remember almost every note of it, but once again – I heard more original performances! Also, for the anchor, the pianist played the “Neapolitan song” from Tchaikovsky’s Youth Album, and I was like – is it a joke?

The last piece was Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, and once again, I was wondering how one can make such a bold, unruly, almost hooligan-like piece so boring!

Usually, we do not talk much on our way home, or we talk about the show we just attended, but since we agreed on our disappointment, she asked me whether we could talk about Navalny. On February 16, she messaged me at 7 AM, expressing condolences, and I replied that although I was outraged with yet another political murder, Navalny’s views were not much better. She said that she wanted to hear more, and we agreed to talk about it.

By Tuesday, she watched that documentary, and said that she started to understand why I said what I said. We had a longer conversation, and I told her why I saw it as a problem that many people in and outside Russia would consider Navalny a good alternative to Putin, which, again, does not by any means justify this political murder. I gave her a short version of our conversation with Lena over the weekend and told her why I believe that “Navalny’s return” was staged. All I know about Putin supports this conclusion, as much as I hate conspiracy theories.

February 24 Again

When Lena and I went to the Ukrainian rally, we made sure to be quiet and not speak Russian. On our way home, Lena said: all went well, we showed our support, and we didn’t get beaten at the Ukrainian rally.

I recalled what Boris said in the early days of the war: now, Russian sounds the same as German after WWII, and it will take at least fifty years, if not more, for this association to go away. (I would add – if…) I had an acute feeling of exactly that at that very moment, and looking at the posters depicting bloody Putin, I was thinking: screw you, what did you do with Ukraine?! What did you do with Russia?! And immediately, I stopped and thought: no, not him. We allowed it to be done.

After we got back home, we talked for several hours. We talked about the necessity of Russia’s complete defeat as the only way to start over. I shared with Lena Igor’s thoughts about educating people and creating the base from which another country could be born. Lena told me about the large Latvian community near where she lives, and how these Latvians were keeping the language and the culture alive for three generations, hoping to return “when the occupation will be over.” Still, when the occupation was over, none of them returned.

I understand what she says, and I agree that people who have lived away from their country for generations are extremely unlikely to go back. I do not think I will ever come back for good, but that’s because there was no political reason for me to leave Russia. I consciously chose the country I now call home. But I hope that the day will come when I will be able to come and help to build a new and better society.

But before that, as I promised to a person who is hopefully reading this now, I will invest in their nursery garden. And I am sure that this day is closer than we think.

Theft, Building Access, And What To Do About It

We had several cases of stolen packages in our building back in December, and you may remember that some of my outgoing mail (four packages with holiday cookies) was stolen as well. At that point, our association raised a question of rekeying the building, but many residents doubted that the theft had happened due to somebody having the building key. They thought that, most likely, the residents were buzzing visitors in without looking. I doubt that (everyone has windows facing the gate, and it takes a second to check). Also, I knew that my packages were stolen during the night hours. In December, everybody agreed to wait till we got new management in January.

A week ago, there was another case of theft, and the same as with me, it happened during the night hours. Once again, there was a conversation about the building re-keying, but this time, our board member related that this project is expensive, and she does not think it will help since the locks are not difficult to break. She even shared the link where you can buy a “lock gun” online.

At first, I was distraught with the decision not to rekey the building, and I was about to write an angry letter to the board, especially when they suggested I could have my packages delivered to a nearby Walgreens (it’s not “nearby,” and time is the most precious resource for me). But then I thought about it and reread the email one more time. This time, I realized that she was right and that locks do not stop thieves, and I am very well aware of that. If somebody is determined to steal, no lock will stop them. The theft does not exist when there is no reason for it. I thought about how I was always against “gating” oneself from the rest of the world and how now I was about to suggest just that, so something was wrong with my moral compass. And then I thought I already knew the answer: the only way to reduce crime, including theft, in my community is to improve the community itself. And my participation in the beat meetings and my new idea to get involved with Howard Community Board were all about that.

I often hear people complaining about the increasing number of homeless people on the streets of Chicago, and I hear their cries, “What do police think?!” I understand that seeing a lot of this misery is disturbing and unpleasant. And I hear some well-off people articulating that they want to be able to pay for never seeing “all that.”

Recently, I thought about how it felt on the streets of Chicago 150 years ago, when there were a lot of very poor people and very few rich people, and how these rich people felt walking the streets and seeing other people’s misery, and how they probably didn’t want to see it, and the policemen were here ready to remove the beggars from the public places. And how these rich people could isolate themselves from the reality behind the closed gates. And I do not want to be one of them.

And I do not want to be that