New doorbell sign

After having to verbally tear some guy a new rear-opening when he was trying to collect money for something as the wife and both kids were sleeping (doorbell was off, so he knocked loudly), we decided to be fair and warn them with a new sign for our doorbell:

Translation:

Advertising / Sales, propaganda and fundraising prohibited.

Offense punishable by verbal humiliation.

The Owner

Eight, nine, .... TEN !!!

Jack and I have been married for 10 years today.
Hard to believe that it's been this long.
We're still very very happy and now looking forward to becoming parents for the second time around.
Life is one amazing roller coaster and it's the greatest blessing to spend it with the one you love.
Any day now :)))

I'm jealous of a 1.5 year old!

This morning when we got to Kita Tim rushed off screaming to a little girl out of another group and gave her a huge hug... he actually stood there hugging her and grinning for quite a while.  Both the girl's mother and I were really surprised at such an extensive and strong expression of emotion and thought it was really cute.  But I have to say, that for a moment there I got really jealous... I felt that my little boy already has feelings towards others that I don't (didn't) know about.  My immediate thought was "who is this little brat that my perfect little man is apparently interested in?!"  And this girl must've been about 1.5 year old!  Made me think that one day he'll have a life of his own, where Jack and I will play a much smaller role.  Obviously it's something I knew on a logical level all along, but today for the first time I actually felt it...  :)  In the meantime the 2 year mark is approaching! 

6 years

Yep, it's that blog post again. Today is exactly 6 years since we came to Berlin. Who would've thought that we'd stay here so long! We have now spent more than half of our marriage together in this city. After putting Timmy to bed, Jack and I just sat around with some nibbles reminiscing about the 6 years and especially last year. The end of 2011 was hard for all of us with Jack working very long hours, but January has already been better.

I think these days we feel more at home here than at any point previously - in fact that feeling increases the more we stay here or may be it reached some sort of a plateau after Timmy was born. Jack has his job with its regular ups and downs, but it provides more than amply for the three of us. Timmy goes to kindergarten where he seems to be pretty happy and with which we are pretty happy, too. I have my masters course, which is pretty damn interesting. And Unix... well Unix has his windowsills and our occasional cuddles (we should give our cat more love!!!). Either way - we all have each other.

As every year I have to say that Berlin has been good to us. It provides us with all the things above and more. Over the past year we made a few good friends here, which makes our existence in this now not-all-completely-foreign land better. But that makes us miss our family and friends from Australia, Russia and the rest of the world in no way less. Thanks for reading and commenting - it always makes us feel a little closer to all of you! Cheers!

Dressing up a storm

As Christmas approaches, so is the number of activities around the place increases. Next week Timmy's group at the Kita are having a Weihnachtscafe, which is something involving kiddies and parents sitting around eating sweets and getting presents. For that as a member of the parent committee I need to organise some games/activities. Then the week after for the smallest kids in the whole Kita there's going to be a Yolka (Russian traditional celebration with a xmas tree, Ded Moroz, etc.). On this day Tim is supposed to come in a costume. This is the first time that the question of costume appeared in our lives. Naturally my thoughts went back to my childhood Yolka celebrations and the costumes my Mum made for me (apparently as a parent you get to live through your childhood once again with your own children and have to deal with all of your issues once again... says psychoanalysis).

In kindergarten I remember having a costume of a squirrel (see below photo), and I clearly recall the tail structure being made out of bits of cardboard and thick wires with orange fabric over the top, and it was very cool. Then at school I always wanted to be a very "traditional" (read: boring) Snowflake, or Snow Queen, or Snow Princess because those white pretty silvery dresses were the envy of each little girl. Well I never got to be any of those (or ever got a Barbie for that matter - thank God for that!)... instead Mum decided to be creative and original, and probably under the influence of all those abstract art history ideas and made me a costume of a ... wait for it... christmas tree. Yep - I went to a Yolka (Russian for christmas tree) dressed myself as a christmas tree. Imagine how I felt when all those spoiled little brats dressed as pretty white Snowflakes kept coming up to me and asking what my costume was supposed to be, and me saying "oh - I am a christmas tree!". In retrospect and to be completely fair I remember having a really good time at that Yolka and it was so cool that Mum made so much effort with the costume. I even remember having green tree-like earrings.


Anyhoo... the point being that, just like Mum, I realised I don't want to dress Tim into anything traditional and boring (pirate, tiger, etc)... until he can pick out a costume for himself at least, so I've been trying to come up with "original" ideas and so far the options are:

1) Koala (to emphasise his Australian heritage)
2) Sigmund Freud (just 'cos he's on my mind a lot lately)
3) his regular self, in the spirit of Wednesday Addams dressed normally for Halloween when asked where her costume is says: "This is my costume. I'm a homicidal maniac- they look just like everyone else."

But I think actually what I'm leaning towards is actually a good old (read: boring) wizard costume. What do you think? Do you have any ideas? And I'd really like to know what was your most memorable costume from your childhood? :)

1461 days = 35064 hours = 2103840 minutes = 126230400 seconds

All those numbers also equal four years. It's four years today that we've been in Berlin. In a lot of ways a lot has changed since we came here... I think we see the world somewhat differently now. In a lot of ways I am not the same person, who came here on the 24th of January 2006. Perhaps Berlin has made me more introverted and more focused on our little family.

After coming back from Russia this time around I felt at home here - in this city. I guess the same way that I feel at home in Melbourne and in Novosibirsk. It is comfortable, familiar and safe in many ways. I feel at home in our flat. This is a first since the apartment in Russia when I was a child growing up before we immigrated to Australia.

It has been a good four years. 2009 has been the best so far for me. We had a good mix of time travelling and being here. We had some wonderful people come and visit. We found out that we're going to have a baby. The summer was warm and sunny, which always makes us happy.

All in all Berlin has been very kind to us and we're very lucky and grateful to be here how we are.

20 years since the wall fell

Today Germany celebrates 20 years since the fall of the wall between East and West. As I am writing this, the fireworks are going off at the Brandenburg Gate and I can just see them reflecting off the windows in the building opposite.

This whole year there have been many exhibitions and events documenting the time before, during and after 1989 (here are some photos from 1989 in the Spiegel). Finally came the big day - today - 9th of November. Berlin is welcoming various former politicians (amongst them Mikhail Gorbatchev), and current ones (Hillary Clinton, Sarkozy, Medvedev and Gordon Brown). Along the route of the former wall a number of TV screens have been arranged, transmitting live the speeches of politicians, music from various world-famous performers and also the fall of the domino stones. These are large domino-like pieces, which have been positioned all along that stretch of the former wall. They have been decorated by school children and were going to be pushed over tonight, symbolising freedom and unity. At the bottom there are some snaps of them still standing up.

When we just came to Berlin in 2006, we were somewhat overwhelmed by the (what seemed to us) very fresh history of the Berlin Wall, WWII and GDR and everything to do with it. I remember one day, when we were walking past the East Side Gallery (the largest remaining part of the wall that was painted over by various artists) we said to each other how amazing it would be to be able to celebrate 20 years of the fall of the wall in 2009, here in Berlin. Who knew that we'd stay here all that time and finally this day arrived.

Unfortunately it has been raining fairly heavily + being winter, it's been fairly cold, so we only ventured out for a couple of hours. But we did walk the 'wall' from Potsdamer Platz to (almost) Brandenburg Gate, together with herds of umbrella-clad freedom-loving public. Overall the spirit of the people seemed positive, although perhaps a little dampened by the weather. It is amazing though to be in this city on this day. It does feel like Germany has overcome something incredible and this new period is marked by a lot of hope for the future.

Hurray to FREEDOM!!!

The photo selection is somewhat scarce and doesn't do justice to the importance of this event, but we blame the weather and our oculus-eligo-phobia (aka my Latin invention for fear of people pocking each others eyes out with their umbrellas).

Domino stones:

Crowd under the rain moving towards the Brandenburg Gate:




And here is a news piece which shows the fall of the dominoes...

Against falsification

Some of you might have seen in the news last week the verbal sparring that went on in Gdansk between Putin and Donald Tusk, about the actual "real and truthful" start of WWII. Polish were blaming the Ruskies, and Ruskies were blaming the Polish - it was all a bit of same old, same old. What is fascinating though, is that I found out today that as of May 2009 a new commission has been established in Moscow. It's goal: "to oppose attempts at falsification of history." Effectively this commission was established to make sure that the West and any Russian (erroneous) historians do not try to bend the truth and put Russia in a bad light. Especially seeing as there has been a lot of talk recently about USSR being at fault for Hitler starting WWII, as well as talk of Soviet soldiers being less than noble in Eastern Europe around that time. Either way it looks like this commission is just another Kremlin propaganda machine. The funniest thing is that two books have since been published by this commission, which address the roles of Poland and Baltic states in WWII. These books are composed from the recently-made-public secret German and Polish documents (which "apparently" came into posession of soviet spies at the time), which detail how very nasty all those countries were. Incidentally, no other copies of these documents seem to exist anywhere else. But that doesn't make the authors blink an eye: "Well the originals must have been lost when Germany cleared out polish archives in the start of the war" - or so they say... to end this post on a more philosophical question - can there ever be one absolute truth?

Have the bums lost?

Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I found this flyer in a pub the other night, and it really made me wonder if the bums really had lost:

Translation (important note : No it does not make any more sense in German!):
The Unified International Struggle and Holiday of the Jobless.
We will meet 13:00 at Senefelder Platz for a mighty demonstration. This year our cause will be carried by an even larger union of responsible initiatives, strong collectives and individuals who make a difference. Now as in the past our aims are the removal of the coercion to, and bondage of working for a wage, the free self-determination of ones life, the fight against the polution of absurd products and the joy of being. Come one and all, bring your robots and potted plants und let us all sing together.

So they've managed to scrape together funds to produce a high gloss postcard, and are going to fight for their right to be bums - have they really lost?

Spring

It seems spring is finally arriving, sunrise this morning on a beautifully clear day at 5:40ish

1096

Yesterday it was 1096 days, or 26304 hours or even just an amazing, roller coaster, lightning fast three years that we've been living in Berlin.

So much has happened in that time that a summary hardly seems possible, or even necessary. It's been fast, difficult, boring, amazing, slow, eye opening, lonely, despair filled, colourful, dark, freezing, empty, busy, wonderful, joyous and a thousand more adjectives that my bilingual brain refuses to cough up.

In a lot of ways I've fallen in love with Berlin - it's a lot like home (Melbourne), and yet very different. It has it's good side - cheap food, beer, lots of culture and great connections to the rest of Europe. And it's bad side - Germans (not to mention their Ruhe - that will need to be another ranting post one of these days) , bureaucracy and Germans ;-) This is something I saw here on a postcard which comes close to summing Berlin up:

Die Berliner sind unfreundlich und rücksichtslos, ruppig und rechthaberisch, Berlin ist abstoßend, laut, dreckig und grau, Baustellen und verstopfte Straßen wo man geht und steht - aber mir tun alle Menschen leid, die hier nicht leben können!
Anneliese Bödecker

Roughly translated that works out to:

The people of of Berlin are are unfriendly and disrespectful, abrasive and full of themselves, Berlin is repulsive, loud, dirty and grey, building sites and clogged streets whereever one goes - but I feel sorry for everyone who can't live here!
Anneliese Bödecker

When all's said and done we're, very glad that we came here and got to do and see the things we have. That doesn't mean that we don't miss all of our friends and family any less - in fact at times like these it makes us realise how far away you all really are.

Take care everyone
Jack...

On Age

This semester we're doing developmental psychology, which for the commoners among you means "the scientific study of systematic psychological changes that occur in human beings over the course of the life span." (thanks Wikipedia). As part of this course I've taken a seminar on successful aging, which is something that has interested me for the last couple of years.

I have to do a presentation in this seminar, and the topic I picked is "layman's ideas on what successful aging is". So far I've read five different studies and here are some findings that I thought were very interesting (I am not going to give direct quotes, because they won't make sense without also giving all the statistical data, which will take ages, so I'm just going to summarise in my own words):

• most people over the age of 65 consider themselves as ageing well or very well, and most report being actually happy
  
• people who are miserable in their old age are usually so due to a physical impairment, which prevents them from doing things. This is not as self-explanatory as it sounds though... a lot of people even in wheelchairs are happy and see their wheelchair not as an obstacle, but as something that actually helps them move and be independent. So the people who are not happy are the ones who are either completely bed-ridden, or haven't found anything positive in their situation.
• 40% of people, having reached "old age" found it to be better than what they expected (as in what they expected it to be when they were still younger); with 52% saying that their earlier (younger) perception of "old age" hasn't changed, and 8% said it was worse.
• people who keep mentally active in their older years are a lot less likely to suffer from dementia
  
• physical appearance is still important in old age. This was interesting, because many young people think that older people don't really care about what they look like, or don't try to look attractive.
  
• being happy in old age does not only depend on being healthy, but on many other factors, such as financial status (having enough money), being able to do things for oneself, and one of the very important aspects is having social relationships and being able to help others.
• even quite a few people with chronic conditions were happy in their old age, as they were able to find things (compensate) which they were able to do instead and take pleasure from that, rather than looking at things that they couldn't do anymore.
• when asked what age would be the "ideal" age, most people considered middle age to be the best age.
  
• Men and women understand what it means to be "successfully ageing" in identical terms, and there is no great difference in gender and how happy they are in their old age
• even though in general our bodies don't function as well in older years, cognitive losses are reversible... so we don't have to forget things "forever"... with training we can still do calculus even if we're 90

The reason I find all this so interesting, is that for some time now I've been thinking about what it will be like to be old. Of course it worries me, and makes me wonder whether I'll be happy or how not to be scared of it. But reading all this really opened my eyes onto the fact that the majority of old people are actually quite happy, even in the cases of those who are very ill. A lot of people found old age to be better than what they expected. On top of that something that we always talked about in my immediate family is that cognitive function is very important in order to prevent dementia and not to be "out of it" - and now I have some "scientific proof" that this indeed is the case. So really being old doesn't sound all that different to being young... it sounds like it's just about adapting to what life throws at you, and taking things as they come. Ahhh... I think I still have a lot to learn :)

"One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young." Dorothy Canfield



For fear of breaching copyright, here is the list of articles where my summaries are from :) ...

1. Rowe, Kahn "Successful Aging" 1997, The Gerontological Society of America
2. Knight, Ricciardelli "Successful Aging: Perceptions of adults aged between 70 and 101 years" 2003, Aging and Human Development
3. Charbonneau-Lyons, et. al. "Opinions of college students and independent-living adults regarding successful aging" 2002, Educational Gerontology
4. Phelan, et. al. "Older Adults' Views of "Successful Aging" - How do they compare with Researchers' Definitions?" 2004, JAGS
5. Bowling "Lay perceptions of successful ageing: findings from a national survey of middle aged and older adults in Britain" 2006, Eur J Ageing
   

The world would be a perfect place if...

there weren't any people who:

• go up the stairs in front of you in the metro and then stop on the very top step suddenly to look at where they need to go
• listen to their music on their phones really loudly on public transport (they're exercising their right of freedom to listen to music, but what about my right not to have to listen to it?)
  
• force you to sit really close to smokers at work (can one get lung cancer from passively smelling a smoker?)
• work in the Ausländerbehörde (Foreign Office) and who lack any kind of emotion, empathy, feelings and who make sure that you experience utmost misery if you try to deal with them, let alone get them to do something as a human being to another human being. Or who give you a phone number (or four) to call, and no matter when/how often you try no-one EVER picks up.
  
• wear their pants REALLY low down exposing their underwear (what about my right of freedom not to be forced to be confronted with eeky underwear?) Since when did belts go out of fashion anyway?
• just can't accept no for an answer!

oh... and all this happened to me just this morning! Feel free to add to the list...

on emails

It's something that's been on my mind for quite some time now. I know with this whole electronic, extra-fast, extra-conventient modern age we all have less time even though we have more appliances to make our lives easier and to have more time. Everyone knows it, but no-one is doing anything about it.

Certainly I've complained to many of you how I miss writing letters (real paper letters that one can touch, feel, put next to oneself and know that the authors hands also touched it), and I really do miss writing long emails. Somehow nowadays whenever I write to people it's a lot more goal-oriented, such as - organising a get-together, organising a phone call, asking for a specific favour or advice... I find myself very rarely writing an email/letter for the sake of writing one - to share my thoughts and feelings, to ponder some questions that's been on my mind, to find out how the other person is... And whenever the opportunity presents itself I am usually thrilled.

An easy way would be to blame the world and to say that people don't reply to me when I do write longer emails... which is partially true. But I guess I've also given up on it and when before, whenever I gotten an email I would reply to it almost straight away... now I usually leave it for a couple of days or weeks even, before I find the time to respond. Sometimes it has to do with time... but sometimes I just feel that very intense, regular communication is something to be avoided for fear of "not sure what". It's been a self-reflective weekend so far, you see...

A part of me realises that when everyone is so far away, everyone has their own lives to live and not much time for anything outside that. However it's not just an issue of geographical separation. Even when we lived in Melbourne I found that we would all see each other a couple of times a year, sometimes more often... so I think it's not just to do with everyone being in the same place, although that helps.

I believe this age of emails, googles, facebooks is on one hand doing a great service for people to be able to stay in touch... but is this "staying in touch" the same quality as the old fashioned "staying in touch"? It feels like trying to compare on one hand sitting in a little cafe on a piazza in Venice on a warm evening, sipping wine and overlooking one of the canals, and on the other sitting in an italian restaurant somewhere else in the world and looking at a photo of a venetain canal on the wall. Both might be pleasant, but it's only that one is that so much better.

Morning reflections around a slice of bread

Do you ever have that indecision when you have two slices of bread/toast in front of you for breakfast and out of numerous spreads you just can't decide which ones to pick? Should it be peanut butter, or stawberry jam, or apricot jam, or honey and butter, or honey and cream cheese, or blueberry jam, or or or... This happens to me all the time...

I wonder if it's a sign that I'm not able to make decisions? Or only able to make big decisions? Or only able to make decisions in relation to things that don't come from baked goods? Does it even need to have a projected meaning onto other planes in my life?

Yes, I am in a philosophical mood this morning. I am getting over last weeks cold and thinking about life, the universe, and everything. The main thing on my mind are the coming-up exams... and yes, after I finish this post I will go and study. I think it is time to make this sad confession - I am not really satisfied with this course that I'm doing. There are too many negatives - such as the incredibly fixed and rigid courseplan, the silly system of presentations from peers which form part of each seminar (all seminars are compulsory, so you can't skip them) where there is no time for discussion - thus each seminar revolves around everyone sitting and listening to other classmates go on about things that most likely won't even be covered on the exam. OK - I know, learning is not just about exams. But then it kind of is, because that's what determines your later academic life. Then there's the whole stupid idea that we sit exams for the whole year (2 semesters) and not just one at a time... which would've been sensible, and no reason not to do it. So I'm not entirely sure what to do.

On the one hand I enjoy the stimulation I get from the interesting parts of the course... on the other, I get frustrated that I can't do better and by all the things that are not right. Up until now I've been only in two degrees which I just simply liked... Art History part of my very first degree at Melbourne Uni, and the Grad Dip in Psychology, also at Melbourne Uni. The Commerce part of my first Melb Uni degree, and my RMIT degree had infinite problems and was even worse than this one. Perhaps this is just not what I expected to start with? Next semester we should have more actual "psychology" subjects, so I hope I pass these exams and get to try those. So far those subjects were really interesting - like personality psych, and right now the brain anatomy. Patience, young one...

On this note this morning rant is over, as I've finished eating my bread (it ended up with blueberry jam after all)... and time to go and study for the said exams. Hope you, my readers, are having a fantastic time wherever you are!

The question of identity

While Zoya was here we managed to squeeze in a wonderful day together. One of the topics of conversation was our loss of identity, and somehow today it just really hit home with me. So I'd like to take this opportunity and just ponder on what it really means to be "me" :)

Prelude: The reason it came up today in my mind was that I needed to go and take part (read 'be a guinea pig') in a psychological experiment. As part of my course I need to acquire 30 hours doing this. Today was an Eyetracker test... where they measure the movements of your eye to test a particular theory. As I got there though the first thing the guy running the experiment asked me when he heard me talk was "You're not a native German speaker?" to which I replied "Nope"... so I couldn't take part he told me. Apparently the experiment was testing how various words evoke particular emotions in people... and of course being a native speaker one would have many emotions associated with particular words. This was not specified before so the guy gave me the piece of paper that I needed anyway, and I headed off home. And this is when the second episode happened...

After uni I took an S-Bahn to Friedrichstraße and headed into Deutsche Bahn office to check ticket prices to Odessa and to London. I started off by asking the price of a ticket to Odessa first - and the service woman was right out rude - ahhing and ohhing and basically being a bitch. It took her a while to find all the fares, which added to her negative mood. Anyhoo... then I asked for a ticket price to London with Eurostar... and suddenly her tone changed - she actually became nicer, and spend another 10 minutes looking up the connection through Brussels and finding out the fares which were hidden by British Rail... thus it was fairly obvious to me that she took me for one of the the dozens Ukranian girls who steal their German husbands, but then decided otherwise.

So where the hell am I going with all of this?

Well it's like this - apparently I speak three languages, whereas in actual fact I can't spell properly in either of them. I have an English accent when I come to Russia, I have a Russian accent when I speak German... and I'm not even sure anymore what's going to happen in Australia next time we go there. Here everyone assumes that I came "from Russia with love", and take absolutely no interest because the whole of Germany is swarmed with Russian-speaking immigrants from the former USSR. Whenever I get into conversation that actually I grew up in Australia, people ask how long I've spent there, and in the end it's only been 11 years - so actually the majority of my life so far was still spent in Russia, even though I have both passports.

Everywhere I am not a 'local'. I don't feel myself either Russian or Australian. And I definitely don't feel myself as a German. None of this is new and the only reason why it made me try and analyse this today is that I realised that there will never be a moment in my life or a place where or when I will feel that I belong. This is the curse and the gift of immigration. It takes away any sole identity and doesn't really give a new one - while at the same time giving the opportunity to get a part of something else. I am forever to be an immigrant. I will always have the accent, and more importantly I will never feel that I belong to just one culture/race/place/time. Is this a problem? Of course the optimist in me says 'no - it's great to have so many experiences in life'. But the pragmatic in me says that it would actually be very nice to feel a part of just one thing... not to have to attempt and divide myself between two/three places... not to have to struggle with trying to answer stupid questions like "oh, I head you're not from here - where are you from?"... not to have to miss two places at once while being stuck in a third...

Then of course there's the question of personal identity that is separate from cultural identity. Who am I? A wife, a student, a Web Developer, a good/bad person? I don't really fit into uni because I am older and have a degree, I am also married and am a partial owner of a flat - something which is hard for students to grasp, especially for students here in Berlin where 90% of people rent. I am not really a wife to many people because I alone don't cook and clean and I have Jack to help me with stuff, but I also haven't produced any children yet. I am not really a Web Developer because I don't work right now, and I'm actually studying Psychology. I am not even going to go into whether I am a good or a bad person - I think there's not enough space on the servers at Blogger to deal with that.

What is my point in the end of this giant rant?

Well - I guess to ponder on the fact that I have no real identity, and that's hard at times. I guess it would've been nice not to have to explain to people why I decided to come here and why I have an accent. Or it would've been nice to grow up and live all my life in Novosibirsk and not have to deal with having to fit into school, uni, another culture in Australia. It would've been nice if people in Germany didn't see Russian women as imported goods with no actual value. It would've been nice if to a question like "Where are you from?" I could answer with a definitve point and not having to explain a complex story. It would've been nice not to have psychological and emotional issues with wondering whether you're being understood correctly or whether you understand what's happening and not feel like a 3 year old... and not have people think you're stupid because you don't know some new-slang word. It would've been nice if my parents having gotten to Australia actually stayed there and "made a life" there and weren't in a long-term depression preventing me from making friends for the first three years. It would've been nice if people on the whole were more understanding of immigrants and others trying to "integrate". A lot of things would've been nice... but life is not like that and the world keeps on rolling. Here's just another ramble from a female (yep definitely that) sitting on a grey IKEA (yep check) couch in Berlin (or at least some town somewhere) typing on a black laptop.

We're very very lucky

This isn't something new to me, to us. It's something that we know implicitly but don't spend a lot of time saying explicitly. Perhaps it's my fever addled brain that's doing this but most likely not.

We're lucky to have to choose between two fantastic alternatives, more than that we're so incredibly lucky that our friends and families still love us and support us even when we make a choice that they'd rather we hadn't made.

We miss you all desperately the sound of your voices, the feel of your presence, the comfort and the hope that you have provided over time. And we know that you miss us too, that makes the choice to stay in Europe a bit longer hard, very very hard.

But, for now we've decided, for better or for worse as they say, to spend a bit more time here.

If you're ever passing by we'd love for you to stop in. Time really does fly, so far from you in Berlin. We miss you most acutely, early mornings and late nights. We really wish we'd see you,
without such long flights.

Jack and Polina

Decisions, decisions...

Get this... I'm sitting in an Allgemeine Psychologie lecture... the lecturer has certain slides on the screen, but keeps talking about something else... I'm also sick... so can't really understand anything that's going on. But thanks to the WIFI I can log onto the World Wide Web and crawl around like a spider.

Thank you guys for everyone who commented and emailed. ...

Zoich... talk to you tonight!
Anch ... I miss you too!!! Thank you for being your wonderful self. or ish...
Olchik... allright... more personal stuff - been dreaming of snakes again... the other night woke up screaming - means I'm feeling guilty about smth. Worked out why I was feeling guilty and decided that I shouldn't feel guilty about it. So last night had another dream with snakes, but these were in cages, so I actually slept through it... progress. This usually happens when I'm really stressed. PS: where in US are you going to be? PPS: degree stuff follows...
Julia... the problem with us is that we do need to produce a more long term plan... because my professional life depends on it... that's why we kind of need to decide this now. I'll explain...
Tanya... we thought about doing a pro's and con's list... but there are almost equal amount of pro's and con's at either Berlin or Melbourne... And the gut... well the gut tells me to come back... but the reason says I shouldn't go just by my gut. Actually after talking intensively about this for the last couple of days we've managed to confuse ourselves what was originally our gut feel :)

So what things are there that are important for us:

1. my degree... here I'm enrolled for a Bachelor of Psych, which takes 3 years, and then I'd have to do another 2 years Masters = 5 years. In Melbourne I'm still enrolled into a Grad Dip in Psych (but this is the last year for which I can get academic leave, so if we stay in Berlin now my place will be gone - which is why this decision issue came up right in this time), which now I can do in one year full time, plus 1 year Honours, and 2 years Masters = 4 years. On one hand the course here is free, in Australia I'll prolly end up paying close to 50,000-100,000 in HECS/HELP/WHATEVERITSCALLEDNOW . On the other hand there is no guarantee that the Berlin course will get accredited in Australia, which will mean that on top of these 5 years I'll have to study another... 1-2-3-4-5 years... That of course if we come back to Australia in a couple of years from now.

2. real estate... here we can buy a flat relatively cheaply and pay it off in about 10 years... in Australia it looks close to impossible, and this is something that is fairly important to us together.

3. then of course there are a number of other factors - like our wonderful friends, who are in Melbourne, or the fact that Melbourne is more comfortable since we grew up there. On the other hand, here in Europe we have a great opportunity to travel and see the world and I'm closer to my parents geographically... it takes 8 hours to fly instead of 2 days.

Basically it's tough. Right now we are leaning towards staying here... but then later if we end up having kids, we'd both like to raise them in Melbourne. But that moment hasn't come yet, so right now it's not a consideration.

I guess one thing I want to say... this is less of a blog entry, but a cry to the world... sort of. ... what I want to say to all of you - our amazing, and loved friends and family - we do love you all, and this decision is even harder because of it. But in this time we're trying to find a decision that will be the "most right" for both of us right now in this point in time and for the next couple of years... We have kind of realised that whatever we'll decide, we'll regret something else and in this way, there isn't a right or wrong decision, or a decision with which we could be 100% happy.
I am not sure that I completely agree with this, but somehow I really liked this quote:

"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live." ~Flora Whittemore~

The little things that are called - life

I am not sure that I'm in the right state of mind to post this. I am not sure I am in the right state of mind to do anything right now - but as usual I can't sleep... mainly due to the huge amount of things going through my head. Noone's online at 0300 in the morning... making it a bit difficult to work out whether what's going on here makes any sense.

I'll just write a brief note to say that last weekend we've been to Denis's wedding in St Petersburg. It was really great. The wedding was completely beautiful... Vika is a wonderful person, and they both look amazingly happy together. Sasha is a little terror, but they both seem to somehow manage with her, so all's well. For us one of the best things was hanging out with Robert, Augustin and Kate over the couple of days that weekend. They are amazing people and it was really hard to say goodbye on Tuesday. This trip to Russia has been one of the very best, and staying up 'till 3am every night drinking and talking has certainly helped. We also managed a trip out to Tzarskoe Selo on the elektrichka (regional train), which came directly with wooden benches out of the post-war era... very funky. Fuck! I feel that this trip deserves a much better description and I'm not giving it enough justice... so I'll try again later.

The main problem is that we're now deciding whether we want to go back to Australia in the start of 2008 after all, and that's really difficult. There are so many things at stake and I'm not sure what the right thing is... and if there is one at all. Every time I chat/email with someone from back in Melbourne I feel that I want to be there. Yet here now I am finally doing the course that I want, and we're about to buy a place. Looking at house prices in Melbourne.. or even rent prices... it looks like we need to be making around $200000 to have a reasonable existence... it's crazy. I know that I'll miss Europe once we go back, but I also know that I'll miss Melbourne if we don't. It seems like such a fucking struggle to have learned this bloody language to just go back now... it feels like we'd be giving something up... but then there isn't anything holding us here. Apart from all the opportunities to travel, and "experience another culture"... but I feel like I've experienced it... Germans are great people but they are foreign... sure that may change in 5-10 years, but do I really want to spend this time here??? But then so many people in Australia are talking about coming to Europe that it seems like as soon as we get there, everyone will leave. I don't know what to do. We don't know what to do. This is the most stupid things of all - internet... I am posting this writing up in some space for someone to read, to react, not to react, to ignore, to laugh, to contemplate... but why?! why are people so far away?! Right now I wish I could pick up the phone and call someone... but I don't have anyone to call, everyone is busy, and mainly I haven't called anyone in ages (apart from parents), so I don't even know how one actually talks on the phone - what would I say? "hi, I'm confused and depressed - help"... sounds like instead of trying to become a psychologist I need one. I suppose I could always call my parents but I know what they'll say... Dad'll be "do the best thing that you think will make you happy." and Mum'll be "you should go back to Australia and have a bunch of kids"... yeah... great!

Anyway I'll stop whinging and may be try to get some sleep. Perhaps the weekend will clear things up... apart from the fact that in 5 hours we'll be on the train to Dresden going to Jack's cousins' wedding... I'm so sick of packing....

PS: I'm not sure that posting all this personal stuff was a good idea.

The result....

Remember the little poll that I asked people to take a few weeks back? Well here are the results for it:



I guess it proves my point that mainly people think that we (ourselves) are better than others and pass judgements about other people's intellect. Am I surprised? Not really, but I suppose there is an idealist in me who likes to see things perhaps as they should be and not as they are.

Thomas Carlyle said - "Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!" But how can one tell whether another human being is wise or not? Need to ponder over this one I think...