Learning to walk

Timmy is learning how to walk. Right now he can only walk with our support by holding onto both of our hands, but more and more he starts almost running, so he really wants to be able to move quicker. He is practising letting go of one of our hands, and also standing still without any support. Right now that only lasts for a couple of seconds, but he's persevering. He's been a little sick over the last week so that put a bit of pause on his trials...

Despite that he mastered walking with a little walker/trolley thingie. To begin with he couldn't control how quickly it moved, so he'd fall over straight away, but now he can control the speed and also the direction... although direction is mainly being altered after he comes across something hard - like a cupboard :)

Some photos from the last few weeks.

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Последний Звонок (The final bell)

Yesterday I had my final exam. The very last exam of my Bachelor of Psychology. I still have to submit two essays before end of July, but I don't have to go to uni for that anymore... so that part of it is over. Wow - hard to believe that I actually managed to get through it. I definitely couldn't have done it without Jack helping me and supporting me all through these years and also without Mum being here to help with Timmy this semester.

Unfortunately my grade average is not brilliant, so I haven't been able to get into the Clinical Psych masters that I wanted to. Sadly at the time of application I didn't have my very final mark ('cos that was still before I finished the subjects I was doing now), so it might've been better if the marks I get now will be good *fingers crossed* But I had two interviews for two other masters (one in Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and another in Work and Organisational Psychology). I am yet to hear the results of those interviews and whether I got a place. And I'm still to decide if I'll take the place even if I was offered one, because it's not exactly what I want to be doing in the long run... and investing another two years into doing something that's not exactly what I want to do - is a question.

Either way I have a pretty good plan for next year if I don't get into masters... and that is to get some work experience working as closely as possible with a professional psychologist and people with mental disorders. Have to see what will be possible there. And then I'll reapply again next year for Clinical Psych masters, as the Humboldt university and university of Potsdam, which are not offering masters at all this year, should be offering them then as well.

So there you have it - Polina is one step closer to her dream job :)

Last day of Kita

On Friday it was Timmy's last day at the current Kita. Even though we had a bit of a difficult start there overall it turned out to be a good first kindergarten. Timmy settled in pretty quick and the teachers were all fairly nice to him. It was even a little sad to pack up all his things and leave. Here he is with Mum in front of it just before we left.

On the other hand changing kindergartens means that instead of an hour that it took to drop Timmy off and pick him up it'll now take 5 minutes. And we'll also be avoiding the seedy prostitute district. Hopefully the new one will be nice, too and the teachers and group will be good. Tim is "on leave" until the 1st of August :)

Here are some photos that the teachers made for us:

The amazing rapidly expanding wallet of the Russian Embassy

Jack and I went to the wonderful Russian Embassy today to see my most hated person in the world - the notary woman. As Timmy and I will be flying to Novosibirsk in August, Jack needed to make a power of attorney that says he lets me take our child on this trip without him. Easy enough. I called about two months ago to make an appointment and over the phone asked how much this document will cost - 7.50 EUR I was told. So far so good. I called again this Monday as I had to double check the required documents and also asked about the price... it has gone up by 50 cents - 8.00 EUR. This morning when we were actually at the notary counter she gave us a receipt that we had to pay at the payment office - Kasse (super efficient Russian queuing system where if you haven't queued at least four times at an official building they don't feel that they have done their job properly)... anyway the receipt already said - 10 EUR (so it's gone up 2 euros in five days - I think it's her private "retirement fund" fee). Finally as we were queuing at the Kasse the price gone up again another euro, because they don't take cash (unless it's below 15 EUR and only for pension inquiries), so you have to pay by credit card or EFTPOS and you don't have a choice but pay one euro on all transactions! So all in all - 11 EUR!

NB: Actually after writing this post I went onto the website of the embassy and discovered that the reason for this increase is that there are different prices depending on the person's nationality. Germans have to pay in some cases double what the Russians have to pay for the same services. So if I had to do the power of attorney I'd pay only 7.50, but because Jack had to do it, he had to pay 10 EUR! I guess it's only fair (????????)