A psychologist is born!

After starting on this journey pretty much exactly 10 years ago, it officially happened on Friday 20.02.2015.  I got my Masters degree in psychology, which now makes me a psychologist.  It's still hard to believe that I am actually finished... at least with the academic part of my quest.  Much more lies ahead, but for now this is a BIG step in the right direction.

Like at the Oscars, there is someone to thank for this and herewith I would like to thank my wonderful husband, without whom this would not have been possible.  Jack, thank you so much for all of your support throughout the years, encouraging me to keep going when I was ready to give up, giving me the time and opportunity to do my studies and believing that I can do it.  You are the best!  Ever!

Spring Update

We've been really busy and neglected the blog. Sorry about that. Life has just been a bit crazy over the last few weeks/months and has involved a lot of juggling. Jack is finishing a big project at work, which is taking up a lot of his time, but which we're really proud of him doing and juggling that with looking after Tim, doing stuff around the flat and the new flat (read below) and organising various things. I am trying to juggle uni and looking after Timmy and also doing stuff around the flat and organising various things. Timmy is juggling his stressed parents so that they do exactly what he wants, going to kindergarten and trying to learn to do things on his own.

For those of you who don't know, in the end of last year we bought a 2 room flat that's adjacent to our one. Our idea is to put our two flats together so that we have more space. We're now in the process of trying to work out an action plan, a budget and just in general agree on what we want and how we want it. This is our next big family project that's taking up a lot of time and effort... but which we're all looking forward to and so far have enjoyed the journey (or at least most parts of it). So once it's all done there will be a room for each of us and for those of you who'll come to visit a guest room :)

Uni has been going well.  This semester we're doing heaps of really interesting stuff, same as last semester.  I signed up for a bunch of conferences that I'll be going to in summer. And I got a work experience place in our big Berlin hospital Charite - in their psychosomatic ward.  I'll be doing that over winter, and really looking forward to working with real patients (I might be singing a different tune, once it actually starts...).

Tim's vocabulary has exploded and he uses lots of different words and also repeats a lot of words after us.  Last week we were at the regular check-up and found out that he's doing very well developmentally (not that we didn't know that already!). But we were very happy to find out that he has really well developed fine motor skills. He also has really well developed stubbornness skills and wants things his way pretty much all the time. Most of the time Jack and I react with humour, but sometimes it gets really annoying. Like this week... most of the time he wants us to help him put on his shoes, even though we encourage him to try by himself... but one morning this week when we were running late he insisted on putting on his gumboots himself - obviously on the wrong foot, etc and when I tried to help him had the biggest hissy fit that lasted all the way to Kita.  Ahhh... these twos can really be terrible sometimes!  But then they're really awesome at other times!  It's really cool to see that he is now his own little person with his own opinions and desires. Favourite two books right now are 'Mr McGee goes to Sea' where he loves the 'umella' (umbrella) and Маленький Мук (a story by Wilhelm Gauf about a midget). Oh - and Tim is now dummy free... it wasn't a really easy transition but now he has a favourite soft toy cat that seems to have served as a good replacement and gives him comfort.

Such is our life in Berlin right now :)

Can you do better?

This is my entry card to uni. It's by far the coolest one I've ever had. Even the IBM entry cards were just pure boring white. Can anyone say that they have a better one?

Academic future of the great-to-be psychologist

It has been a while since we posted here. Mainly due to extreme lack of time. Jack has gotten a new project at work that keeps him busy days, evenings and weekends. I have been busy organising my future academic life and various things around the flat (to be reported in due course). And Tim has been busy being Tim - growing himself, growing teeth, practising walking and running, making sure his opinion is heard loud and clear and generally being cute :)

I haven't been accepted into masters at my old uni because my average score wasn't perfect. So I had the option of either waiting a year and re-applying, giving me an advantage of having two Wartesemester (semesters where you wait for a place and don't study in the meantime, which somehow gives you a competitive advantage) or applying for a course at a paid university. The problem with the first option was that there's no guarantees that I'll get a place next year. Additionally I was hoping to use this year of waiting to get some work experience, but for most work-experience places it turns out that you need to be a student to be able to do it. Because if you're a student you can't sue your employer for not paying you a cent - normal German practice. Finding a paid placement for someone with a Bachelor of Psych is next to impossible since there isn't actually much you can do with this degree as it is.

Thus as of next week I'm going to study at International Psychoanalytic University doing a Master of Arts in Psychology. Unfortunately it costs an arm and a leg, but for that I don't have to wait a year. It also looks like the education that I'll get there might just be a little bit better than what the previous university was able to offer me - smaller class sizes, better facilities, what-looks-like lecturers who are a little bit more interested in teaching rather than just doing their research. The other upside is that it's in the centre, so it cuts my travel time by about 20 mins and I can also get there on my bike riding through central park.

We'll see. I don't want to get my expectations too high to avoid being too disappointed, but so far it's looking good.

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 :)

Grandma, Supplantophobia and routine, routine, routine

Things in Berlin are full of routine...

Mine is pretty much determined by studying and preparation for two upcoming exams and also writing the final essays. It is broken up by occasional cleaning and cooking, repeating my mantra of "31.07.2011 - it's all over... hang in there!" and even more occasional spending time with any other member of the family.

Mum arrived on a direct (!) flight from Novosibirsk just over a week ago. Her routine involves reading, helping us out heaps with taking Timmy to and from Kita, as well as looking after him lots in general, food shopping, absolutely spoiling Unix, some cleaning and now additionally working on her second doctorate in the state library.

Jack's routine is a variation of work, spending much time on our (this year most terrible and disgraceful) public transport, occasionally dropping Timmy off at Kita and organising various flat and bureaucracy related things that need to be done.

Timmy's routine is a combination of going to Kita, playing with any family member who is currently available (mainly Grandma) and being vaccinated. He has been getting the next set of various vaccinations, so we're back at the paediatrician roughly every fortnight. He had a really bad reaction to one of them a few weeks back - his leg swelled up and was almost double in size for a few days. Thankfully the swelling went away reasonably quickly and we just hope it won't happen too often.

The only common variable in all of our routines is dinner-ing together and relaxing post-dinner with an episode or two of The Simpsons (although Timmy's participation in this is somewhat more vicarious from his cot in the other room).

Mum and I decided to spice up our routines a little and went to a classical concert on Sat night that was part of the Piano Fever festival. The first piece was a contemporary one and we didn't understand any of it, but the rest of it was very enjoyable. It was held at the Gemäldegalerie so we could look at some of the paintings in the break. The only funny thing to report about that night was the initial entry of the French pianist onto the stage - as he was making his entrance he tripped on the stage stair and fell pretty much right on his nose. Ha Ha (Nelson's voice) I suppose somewhere deep down it must be a common phobia of all performers - I shall call it supplantophobia!

Other than that Timmy has been very active and pulls himself up constantly. He's also getting more confident at moving along things - like along the coffee table, by holding onto it. A few times after walking with one of us (by holding onto our arms) he almost let go and wanted to do it himself. He also worked out how to ride his cool little bus by himself... steering is still something of a challenge, but the rest of it works very well. He also acquired a new nickname "mincer" for his amazing ability at eating things very quickly - primarily bananas and melons :)

Some photos since the last update...

May - an update

This month has been pretty busy. I've had my last uni presentation (well at least the last one for the bachelor course). And I can't wait to finish the course in two months. This week I've applied for Masters, but unfortunately the cutoff mark is very high, and my marks are not... so I'm optimistic, but also realistic. If I don't get in this year, then I might do some work experience somewhere and then reapply next year. In 2012 another two other universities (apart from mine) are going to be offering Masters, making it three options in total.

We also finally made a decision about Tim's Kita. The one where he's going to now is quite far and especially with the current construction work on the metro it takes about 30 mins to get there. We also have to walk past all the prostitutes, which makes me feel fairly uncomfortable. In the meantime we got offers from two kindergartens directly near us, for an intake in August. One is another Russian/German and another just a pure German Kita. I went to visit both of them this week and although the German one is nicer in many ways (own playground, lots of space, cheaper) we decided to go with the Russian/German one, because if Tim has a chance at learning Russian I think it's very good. Unfortunately it means that he'll also be learning the Soviet/Russian mentality, but in some ways it's not a bad thing. And we can see his group room from our windows :)

Today the three of us ventured out to the former airport Tempelhof. It's now a park and we just went to have a look. There's a bbq area there, so we might come back next weekend and have a picnic.

Mish mash update

This week from Monday to Wednesday Tim was in the Kita five hours each day. On Monday we even rode the bike, and it takes 20 minutes even going very slowly. Usually I drop him off around 9am and he is there 'till around 2pm. From 12 until 2pm it's their nap time, and Tim actually managed to sleep there on the very first day... I was really surprised because he normally doesn't sleep well in a new environment. But on Monday he managed an hour and 20 mins, and then on Wednesday already he slept the whole two hours and even a bit longer. He cries when I drop him off but the teachers said that he calms down very quickly afterwards and seems to enjoy his time there. So we're hoping it's not going to be too bad of an overall experience for him. Not that we really have a great choice of options...



Unfortunately he has bronchitis again, so on Thursday we kept him at home.



My uni started. It's been really strange being back. I am surrounded by teenagers who seem to know more than me. I really need to catch up on the material from my last semester.

In other Tim related news - he can now sit up from being on his tummy. He's been sitting really well for ages, so he'd sit, if you sit him somewhere but he couldn't sit himself up...and now he's mastered it. He also tries to pull himself up on his arms, although with questionable success :)



Oh, and about a week ago Timmy got his very first shoes. No, he can't walk yet, but they play a lot in the sandbox at the Kita, so he needed something a bit more waterproof than socks. Just wondering - has anyone bronzed their baby's first shoes, or is that completely a thing of the past? Not that I think that this pair is particularly bronze-able, but I am just curious...