Passionarity then, huh? :)

"... the ability for and urge towards changing the environment, both social and natural, or, physically speaking, towards the disturbance of inertia of the aggregative state of an environment"
http://creativity.netslova.ru/Passionarity.html


A politically correct synonym for the yet another Russian "awe up in the ass".

Hosting The Grand Family Reunion -

- starts with cooking insanity. It's good NOT to be the only kid in your family when expecting your family to join for dinner...

And to have an awesome son of your own who can stand on a chair beside you, take out peeled vegetables out of bowl and put them on your cutting board. Does save a lot of effort :)

And a Sis who, apart from helping with cooking, also helps with cleaning and brings upstairs part by part, a Queen-size bed.

And I do have a new work space in the house, with a bit more natural light and (it is important) behind closed doors. Bunch of drawers in my desk finally provide some space for proper arranging study books, pens and highlighters, language study books and CDs; so I do have a place to keep my hand lotion and my agenda close at hand too :) 

Note to self: buy a Yellow agenda for year 2016!

A major thing that hasn't been completed yet is the roof work. While the weather is obviously not cooperating, the fact that the roof team shows up on Monday morning, right after the snowfall, on Tuesday morning the actual roof materials get delivered and placed on the rooftop, and on Wednesday the solar panels team pays up a visit not being exactly sure why they were called in by their manager and leave without take off any of the solar panels - make my eyebrows jump up beyond my will. An exciting quest of placing 4 adults somewhere  for a whole day is coming.

Meanwhile my own belongings keep breaking, tearing and disappearing, and above all - fully used up, and this is becoming more and more intriguing.

I found myself sitting at the Parents Night,

surprised not so much with the act that I found time to attend, but the fact that I am actually here.

That it is time.

That for all these years Parents' Night was something to attend for my own mother (not that she would show up much since I was ten), parents of my classmates and  friends, and now my friends and their own children, and colleagues and their children... and now they came for me

I am ready to do this for the next 20 years; or a little longer if everything goes as planned :) I do like the idea that for the next couple of decades I will be doing certain things that will not bring immediate reward or will be appreciated neither by the immediate beneficiary nor by my family on the whole, but yet I will know that they will yield lots of benefits in the long run, will make my role in my family most efficient and my time I spend with them most productive. I know the right things to be done, and I will follow through. And being selfish as I am - can't help thinking that it will be a great training on becoming a smarter, wiser, quicker, stronger person.

Speaking of children - in plural - I keep hearing occasional voices of the world outside my head, saying that having children - in plural - with a small difference in age is a tough enterprise. That it  is a difficult, exhausting and overall yacky experience that would slow you down and mess up your life. That as a woman you have to realize you can't have it all and need to get your priorities straight: is what you want more a family or career? Serving other people around you or achieving your own goals? Making sure your children are enrolled in sports and take dancing classes or being able to afford to travel altogether with your family?  Having your left arm or right arm?  I giggle when I hear all these voices outside-my-head - what in the world can they know! -  but I almost feel sorry for those women they get to.

And as earlier today, at lunch, I was sitting at the same table with quite a few interesting people I felt very lucky for having crossed my path with those who can inspire and prove with their own experience that there are plenty of options in life - just stretch your arm out. It is possible to have a large family and be a professional and  one of the leaders in your area. It is possible to go through the trouble of getting all the necessary education and help provide all necessary education to your children later in life. It is possible to get to the level where you can be friends with your top clients and continue living a busy social life. It is possible to go to the mountains for skiing and raizor rides at the age of seventy, and take trips around the world or bike to Alaska at the age of seventy. And feel good in your skin, and be happy.

Just aim at it.

A long angry post about gender specifics of sharing life experience and emphasizing values in womens' blogs could have been published here.

But there will be none.
Because after 10 minutes of reflecting on virtual paper I realized I was reinventing the wheel and boiled it all down to a short advice.

If you are a female in urgent need of inspiration in any part of your life - do go read Forbes or the Economist. Do NOT search for life inspiring examples or tips in blogs and amateur articles of women who belong to your Zone of Proximal Development.
For gender hell breaks loose in their blogs...

The cure.

I love days when absolutely everything is in my favour. I get up earlier than usual, there is no traffic on the way to daycare and back, the study material gets organized and memorized ok by the brain :), there is no line at the gas station (and that calls for some special star alliance I'd say), I get in and out of stores in a minute, with precisely what I was looking for, and the coupons work even if they were not supposed to, and a nail polish of precisely the colour I want gets founded, and the hormones are down, and the dinner gets cooked quickly and easily, and jogging is quite bearable, and the new book I started is so enjoyable!
Days like this save a tremendous amount of time and energy. :)

And then there are days when I have the weirdest dreams and I can't figure them out, and the morning is freezing and grey, and I feel lost and can't focus, and then miss gym because the insurance agent needs to stop by and take a look at the solar panels at a short notice.

And the best cure to this is not to wait for it all to end, but to twist the course of the day and let my little hooligan out. To do something irrational, unpredictable, and unexpected,  stick out the tongue and giggle. Then the universe shakes a little, things fall back into their places, but the day continues on a new trajectory, thoughts and body get lighter, the head becomes clearer, the smile stretches wider.

Another habit that needs to be eliminated:

Thinking too much into things.

Was hesitating to check something out online. Wasn't even sure what I will see or read, but had a feeling that might throw me off balance for a short while. Eventually, I decided that whatever I see - I can always use as my own motivation, rather than getting emotional.

In reality, what I saw (and read) made my day; showed me I've been on the right track all along and must be doing much better than I expected. Now all these "what ifs" look ridiculous.  I am just happy this reminder to stay reasonable and focused went off in an insignificant situation. There may be bigger opportunities coming up...

I logged out of my second International Markets Finance exam

 with a strong feeling that it is as bad as it gets: the final tasks was to summarize Dodd-Frank reform: one sentence for each title...

Nevertheless, the Bank Analysis project proved me completely wrong.
I looked at the task list and understood that this project alone should weigh full course worth credits. There was so much to do, that even with the instructions and UBPR already distributed to us I could hardly imagine where to begin to get the best use of my time (which I barely had).

By the time I fished out all the numbers and was done with the calculations for DuPont analysis I got pretty optimistic about finishing this project by the end of summer semester :) NIM and Burden analysis got me completely lost in UBPR: could neither understand where the numbers in the example came from, nor - how the calculations in the example were done and results were obtained if the formulas in the instructions were used.

By the time I got  to peer analysis I realized I would only finish this project when I retire.
The analysis itself was, as always, the least painful part. The bank sucked badly compared to its peers throughout my whole analysis sections - luckily for me, since the actual entity was shut down in 2008...
With project and tasks like this, I sometimes feel it's not even possible to get the bottom of it ; but eventually,  with just a bit great deal of persistence, flax seeds oil, coffee and Visine - I manage to break through. Some time after that the story repeats itself =)

The bottom line and the note to self: to go over this post if I ever decide to go to grad school.

The daily routine rush sucks you in so smoothly and unexpectedly you don't even notice it

 until at one moment you realize you are out of juice and out of breath and your thoughts are straggling. Quantity of tasks are inversely proportional to quantity of time.

No, no one said it would be easy. But with hindsight - I should be probably used to this by now, if not ashamed of the spontaneous moments of weakness. If at 10 I could combine  school, with good grades in my "special mathematical class", music school, extra English lessons, books, friends and some creative activities - 15 years later, I just must be a professional multi-tasker!

"Breathe!" - says my boxing instructor.- "If you do not breathe you won't get enough strength and concentration for your punches".

"Don't forget to breathe" - says my yoga instructor,- " You are rushing into your poses too much. Take it slow, move smoothly and keep on breathing deep".

...If I have already done so much to bring myself to where I am now, I bet I can do more. There is nothing in my life now that has not happened before, in one form or another; only when knowledge and skills grow and develop - the challenges become harder, and the goals - higher. And that must be a good sign :)

So I continue working, and studying, and writing, and reading, and running, and punching, and cooking, and learning something new, and playing the piano, and laughing with friends, and making travel plans, and planning my next big leap.

And breathing...