Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

No Work-Life Balance Or Any Balance At All!

This week feels like the Apple mental health survey(‘Have you ever felt that the difficulties are piling up so high that you can’t overcome them?”). I spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to schedule and reschedule things, and something pops up each time I squeeze things in. The worst part is that the work projects are moving at a slower speed than I would like them to move, which means I am leaving a lot of unfinished work right before going to a conference. I invested tons of effort to finish one of these “long-distance runners” last night, and it ended up being two and a half hours instead of twenty minutes, and not because of me. I am happy that I can put a checkmark and close the ticket, but I planned to finish packing last night, and I had no time for that, and now I am unsure when to finish except for right before the departure :).

Another “check” – I finally introduced another caregiver to mom. The positives about her are that she lives very close and is way more flexible. Mom at least didn’t dislike her and agreed to go for a walk with her a couple of times when I am away.

Also, I can’t believe it has been just a couple days since I was at the beach – it was heavily raining for the past two days, and yesterday it was sunny, but almost freezing in the morning. The good side is that I am more mentally prepared for Helsinki :).

More Books

Sweet Darusya

Followed a friend’s recommendation. It was difficult in the beginning because although I do not speak Ukrainian and even more so Hutsulian, I could still feel that the English translation lost a lot of language flavor, and I was frustrated not being able to grasp it. Still, I kept reading because since I first visited Bukovina in 1976, I had fallen in love with its people. Despite all Soviet propaganda, it was impossible not to see the level of oppression Hutsuls had experienced, and it was absolutely clear that their existence within the Soviet Union was not a happy ending to their struggles. I fell in love with the local legends. For many years, Oleksa Dovbush was my hero, and when other romanticized korsars and musketeers, I dreamed about opryshkes. I know what is drymba and what is kiptar, and how does Hutsul embroidery look.

After the initial “no, it doesn’t sound right!” I got all absorbed in the story: powerful, horrifying, and so beautifully written. I am not 100% sure whether those readers who knew nothing about the history of this region would love the book as much as I loved it, but I highly recommend it.

Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

It seems hardly possible to tell something new about Greek mythology, but Natalie Haynes succeeded in this endeavor. Focusing on female figures in Greek Myths, she conducted extensive research and presented the readers with many little-known facts. She also encourages the readers to think beyond what they learned in schools about the Greek Gods, and analyze the myths from today’s point of view on gender (in)equality

Eile Weisel: Night. Dawn. Day.

For some reason, Goodreads does not show the other two books of this trilogy, Dawn and Day. I believe they are often combined into a “Trilogy,” but I can’t find it either. I listened to the audiobooks, starting with Dawn and ending with Night. All three are not easy to listen to. They all talk about the long-term personality damage that does not end after a prisoner is liberated from the concentration camp, which I think is really important to understand. I just looked over the reviews of this book, and I see that most readers limit their reviews to one or two sentences, and that’s how I feel: it’s very difficult to write anything except for “horror” and “must-read”.

Women At War Exhibit

A speaker whom I invited to present at Chicago PUG on October 15 came to Chicago for the first time in his life. That meant that I had to show him the city, at least for a little bit.

I booked the Chicago Architectural Cruise, and we agreed to walk around after that. Fortunately, the weather was not bad, although not as gorgeous as last weekend. Also, the docent on the tour was really good. You never know; it’s always hit or miss, but this was really good!

As usual, when I have very little time, I try to show some non-obvious places, so when we disembarked, I walked my guest directly to the Chicago Cultural Center. There, on the first floor, i saw an exhibit that I had no idea about:

Continue reading “Women At War Exhibit” →

Petition: One Month Later

Alicja’s Petition: One Month Later

The Longest Beach Season Ever!

And the water was not cold! It was definitely colder than ten days ago, but way warmer than at the beginning of June when you need to talk yourself into jumping in :). I walked into the water, and thanked the Lake, and looked around at the horizon line, the seagulls, a boat far away, and the reflection of the sun on the lake surface. I think that was actually the last beach day of 2024 :).

The Night Ministry

On Thursday, I attended the Night Ministry Annual fundraiser. With almost everybody I knew gone, I was unsure whether I would see any familiar faces. However, I wanted to make another attempt to resume volunteering, which has been challenging to schedule for the past several months. Surprisingly, I met many people, and even those who barely knew me recognized me.

I ended up having three long and in-depth conversations about my future at the Night Ministry. Everyone mentioned that I am/has been a person who could bring young people together, and “I was the best” and it would be a shame if the Night Ministry won’t have anything for me to do. One of the opportunities was a Crib, which is a completely different volunteering pattern but might actually work for me. I guess we’ll have to see in November.

Overall, I feel hopeful. For the past several months, there have been many times when I thought that I just needed to give up that part of my life, but then I felt a huge void and could not be a whole person without the Night Ministry, so I kept trying.

I am a Morning Person!

Mom’s Updates

Yesterday, the physical therapist who comes weekly to work with my mom graduated her to walking outside independently. He said that she made significant progress, which is great and remarkable. I know that my mom worked hard and performed all of the exercises twice a day.

I thought that on this note, she would send everyone away and would prefer to walk on her own all the time, but thankfully, she was cautious enough to say she would still need somebody for longer walks next week. I am still unsure how I will feel leaving Chicago for two weeks, but we have another week to evaluate the situation.

Archeopteryx In The Field Museum

The archaeopteryx acquired by the Field Museum in 2022 is only the 13th ever found – I didn’t know they were so rare! And there were tons of other things about archeopteryx that I didn’t know; I learned them yesterday during the discussion in the Field Museum. It was the opening night for Chicago archeopteryx – it took two years for scientists to prepare this fossil for the exhibition. Two lead scientists answered the audience’s questions. They were visibly excited about the new research prospects and said a book was in the works.

Other things I learned:

  • All archeopteryxes found so far didn’t reach their maturity and were still going, so we do not know the size of an adult.
  • It’s close to impossible to tell the gender of the species.
  • We do not know what they ate, but most likely insects (judging by the teeth enamel)
  • All birds lost their teeth in the process of evolution, and scientists are unsure why. All birds swallow small stones to grind the food in their stomachs (anyone who ever butchered a chicken would agree :))
  • The feathered were not for flying originally, but rather for temperature preservation, and the ability to fly was an extra bonus 🙂

Work-In-Progress

I have too many projects at work that are “in progress,” and it’s extremely tiring. Despite the multiple thanks I receive every workday, I feel like I am not doing my best, not making enough progress, and overall doing too much of the “women’s work.” I do not mind doing it occasionally, but for a while now, it’s like “nothing but.” In addition, there are two community issues that really bother me, and I do not see any positive resolution in the near future. Strangely enough, I feel simultaneously too much invested in each of them and not doing enough for each of them.

Also, today, I took my mom for her third CT scan. The neurologist suggested doing it in the same hospital where he will see her for a follow-up, and he even mentioned it could be done on the same day. In reality, I was unable to schedule both appointments on the same day, so we had a CT scan today, and the doctor is scheduled for Friday. The hospital is located very inconveniently from where we live, and today I had to take Uber during the rush hour, and it was a living hell. The drive took an hour. Then we waited there for more than an hour. Then the drive back was extremely bumpy, and I was late for the time when I needed to do some production work. I chose today because I hoped to be home by 6-30PM, but I was there more than an hour later and tired and hungry.

Ultimately, I finished all my work, and both migrations went almost smoothly :), and I am not even staying late. I am just very tired.