What's new in a new millennium?

We've come into the new millennium with a wonderful invention - Internet. And same as with the invention of a wheel or electricity or automobile our world will never be the same. It is changing rapidly as we speak.
Internet is not a luxury – it’s a powerful tool, a necessity. Not everybody is having it yet, but everybody is coming to understanding of necessity to have it.
Internet gives us immense possibilities. It supplies us with answers, it teaches us and helps us in everyday life. It educates us. It gives us the power of communication as never before. And it unites us.
We are still paying exorbitant prices for cellphones and convenience of it but Internet connection brings as something that is affordable fast and promising. We can talk to the whole world and get response and we do not have to pay arm and leg for that. Technology is there. All it needs just a little bit of a fine tuning, just more knowledge for a regular user and voila, - no more borders or restrictions unless somebody invents it to prevent us to use it freely as we should do, as we have a right to do.
It's so wonderful, I do not even have words for it. Thanks, technological geeks, thank you all who contributed to it. I cannot imagine my life without Internet. It's like a whole new world right at your desk, like a universe of knowledge and wisdom from the entire world.
Another thought. We have year 2010 and think about it: we did not have a world war since 1945, it's amazing.
May be as a civilization, we've learned something. May be we will be able to stop killing each other and start solving mutual problems, set mutual goals. Is it really possible? Are we going to be lucky or what?
At the same time finally people start realizing that indeed you are what you eat. We finally started on a global scale pay attention to nutrition.
We encourage people to eat healthy and to grow healthy stuff. Most people in civilized countries understand the importance and actively go for it.
Racism and religious chauvinism are not something that can easily be eliminated, but in most civilized countries these traits are not openly tolerated.
We have a black president in US and this fact speaks volumes.
We still have terrorism as a serious danger.
We have aids and other dangerous diseases, famine and local wars are still gruesome realities for many.
We still collect atomic and biological weapons.
We still get depressed and depression becomes younger. We still need help, we need somebody to come and save us from ourselves.
Can we still survive in our world? Can future generation survive and prosper and be happy?
Do we really care? Do we all need to be happy? Well, I am sure you can answer that last one, it's not difficult.

Immigrant syndrome.

Is it a myth? Or does it really exist? Do, we immigrants come to a new country scared and eager and hungry? And I am not talking about physical hunger. Nothing like that. It’s different kind of hunger. Hunger for something you never had a chance to have, you could not even dream of having and now there mere possibility of having it makes you really hungry and restless.

You just need to try a little bit harder. To run a little bit faster. So you can be the first to grab it. And voila! You do not know how it happened but now you are running around working two or three jobs , saving every penny so you can have stuff and lots of it.

Clothes, gadgets, car, another car, the house to live, the house for a rental investments.

Run faster and faster, no stop for you, no rest for you.

You keep forgetting something, something you used to remember, something really important, if only you could stop for a moment, you would probably be able to remember that important thing you forgot. You lost your friends you left in your old country, your old friends you do not have time to write to.

Not that you have time for new friends either. You need more and more work, more and more stuff.

Kids are growing, need more things too: clothing, computers, what not. You do not buy books – no time to read. But you are paying for the cable, though you do not have time to watch TV.

You look at your growing kids wondering: why they are not like you? They are not in a hurry to run anywhere. They are sitting at home playing computer games and not in a rush to earn money or obtain things.

Did you forget something while chasing a dollar? Or is it that they are different and not hungry as you are. They do not suffer from immigrant syndrome like you because they are not immigrants like you, it’s their country and they are not in a hurry.

Nothing is going to disappear. They have everything they need: food, shelter, stuff. You supplied them with that and they are satisfied with what they have.

But why your are not satisfied, why do you try to get more? You still feel the need to have more, to save more, to obtain more.

Deep down you are scared that everything around you can disappear, can sink somewhere and you again will be in need and alone.

Why does it scare you so much, but not your children? Why is it me not them still running, still in high gear? When am I going to stop?

I am tired; I do not want to run any more. I want some rest, I want to loose my immigrant syndrome, to stop and simply enjoy my everyday life. How much is too much? What else do I need? But in vain I am asking all these questions over and over again. No one is there to answer them and I am still running…

What if I say that I do not believe in god?

Please, do not spit on my image and don't call me a f* atheist. It’s more complicated than that and I deserve to be heard.
I do not believe in God, as he is portrayed by church. But I do not believe in Darwin’s theory either. Standing in a Zoo and looking at pink bottoms of monkeys mopping in front of me in a cage, I cannot believe I originated from them, just kill me, before I do. Give me a break!
I do believe that somebody or something created us, just don't know who and why. Like some human germ that had been met with favorable conditions on this planet that allowed a human being to be developed and evolve into human race, that conditions made us what we are - very fragile and strong at the same time, unpredictable, vulnerable, capable of great love and sacrifice and unthinkable brutality and total destruction and self-distruction.
It has to be random and it has to an accident. No willpower could create us that imperfect, that capable of hurting others and ourselves. I am sure of that.
We are willing to kill another human being just because he does not speak our language and has a different life style. For any other stupid reason too.
We still have wars and people die everyday for some stupid ideology or just because somebody told them that this is good and noble. We kill young and beautiful people and send their coffins home to their grieving parents. At the same time we can sacrifice our life to save another human being!
People make themselves guinea pigs for scientific researches. Go great length to save others. Starve themselves so their children could eat. Struggle so other people live better.
We live in a terrible poverty among the world of abundance. We live homeless among palaces with more rooms than you could handle. We deny our children food when supermarkets display any possible products that produced by nature and human ingenuity and throw. Restaurants throw away tons of food just because no one wants to buy it.
Why? Could any reasonable being or super being create all that? He should be a real jerk to do this.
That's why I do not believe into divine creation. It should be random as I already said and it should be an accident. We all are pieces of nature's puzzle, elements of world's chaos and order. Can we evolve into something better - sure why not? How? I do not have the answer.
We have a great potential, I am sure of that. Of course to destroy is always easier than to build something, and laziness is our best friend, but still could we become better? I am sure we are getting there though rather slowly.
I am sure we have enough reason to preserve that planet of ours and us on it and to prove to the next generation, that there was a very strong reason to our presence in this world - to make world better if nothing else.

Christmas is over ...

Christmas is over and now it’s New Years Eve. Another year is ending. I had a nice dinner with my family on Christmas. Turkey was tasty but the cake that I usually bake, that cake did not turn up good as usually. I had some missing ingredients. Basically grocery stores closed way too soon this year on Christmas Eve. I tried to get into Basic Foods grocery store, but it was closed even before 7 p.m. It was strange. As if they do not have enough food to sell? I do not get it. Or do they just force people to go to restaurants?

May be it’s just a big conspiracy, I do not know. I was shocked, as I tried to buy some stuff for my Christmas dinner and ”kissed” the locked doors. I did not want to buy food at a variety store and I decided to manage as is and I managed all right just my cake did not turn up as good as usually.

Well, it’s not the last Christmas I hope. There will be much more holidays I am sure, more nice turkeys and cakes. Next time I’ll do better, I promise. I did not have any guests anyway, just my family, so it’s okay. And now it’s the end of the year, I probably should stop here my writing and finish tomorrow. I do not have to work tomorrow so I can continue my narration easily. I just do not want to postpone it till next year.

It’s funny. Today is the year 2009 and in an hour it will be 2010.

I have not accomplished a lot in the year 2009. Same job, same old people around. Did not go anywhere for holidays – no funds for that. May be next year. Always the next year.

What should it be like a New Year resolution? I do not know. I do not want to plan too much. May be get some education in something useful, or get a license in translation, that’s long overdue.

Or may be just to buy a new TV, old one is gone.

Or to go somewhere I’ve never been.

Or to get some courage and buy a house, though in the last case I need more money than courage.

Somehow I do not anticipate more money next year. Well, I think I’ll be all right anyway. I have a job. I am healthy. I did not catch that scary swine virus in the year 2009, that’s good.

Inflation is up. But Canadian politicians declared the end of a crisis, so may be somebody else in my family will get a job too…

Prices are up too. Yesterday I wanted to buy some caviar for my holiday sandwiches, but when I got into a small Russian grocery store, I noticed the sign: 200g of genuine black caviar - $299.

I told the store girl: “You have a mistake on your label, it’s supposed to be $2.99 or something and she responded:” No, no mistake, it’s the right price”. Indeed!

No caviar for me, sorry, not rich enough.

Some smoked salmon sandwiches will do all right.

In my old country there was such a word “to get” something, that word had a very broad meaning.

If you do not have something, but you need it and you cannot go to the store and just buy it, you can “get” it if you know the right people, who could “get” it for you.

Well, I did not “get” inexpensive caviar this year; do not know the right people in Canada.

That means I will be deprived of my rights as a citizen to have the food that I want on my New Years Eve (just kidding). I do not care less. I will be happy with my salmon and cheese sandwiches and a glass of wine and with people who are dear to me around.

Cheers! See you in a year!

I find it annoying...

It’s so annoying; I cannot even say it. I do not have time to write anything. Today I was so tired; I was sitting just watching an old movie. I love old movies from 1950s and earlier. I adore Betty Davis. She is so full of inner charm and energy, that she attracts you and draws your attention.
It was that phrase that caught my attention. One man was singing something like “You had a feeling that you wanted to go and you had a feeling that you wanted to stay”… Something like that, very funny and at the same time to the point. We all sometimes have I am sure emotions like that. When we feel that we have to go, we want to go, but at the same time we want to stay. We just want the situation change and go away by some miracle, so we could stay, because we do not really want to go… Well, if you never experience something like that then you will probably won’t understand.
For so many years I’ve been living in a situation when I felt like I desperately want to go somewhere, but I did not at the same time wanted to leave my family and go away. You see, when you do something what you do not really want to do just because circumstances make you do that, and you are afraid to do otherwise, you little by little create a situation in which you are not comfortable, not satisfied, do not want to stay.
You start looking for solutions and find yourself trapped in that position that basically you yourself created, if you know what I mean. You become completely dissatisfied, trapped in it, you are trying to find a reasonable solution, but do not see that. You feel obligations, somebody is counting on you, your husband, children, relatives, you have a job you are afraid to loose etc. You continue to live and feel miserable, but do not see the red light that says: THE EXIT. You could live for many years like that and it’s the worst favour you could do to yourself.
If you are not changing the situation, then the situation will change you and not to your advantage.
You are going to loose your faith in yourself and in your ability to change things to the better. I do not think that I am unique in that, I think many people, women especially do that mistake. They allow the situation to control them and screw their lives big time. Because you cannot change the past and years that you left behind should be the happy ones, ones you’d like to remember and cherish.
Then your life is worth living.
Though I find it really annoying sometimes that you cannot change the past.

A happy childhood, what is it?

Perhaps to understand that you should at least experience it. I did not have o lot of it. At nine years of age my childhood was over. My youngest brother got really sick and I had to take care of him because my mother had to work and there was no one else to take care of him but me and I was just 9.

My mother could not cope with the tragedy. She literally fell apart. I became his second mother. I cooked for him, fed him, because he could not take care of himself. I sang him songs and read stories and I called him my son because my mother called him that.

I loved him very much too, I wanted him to be alive, healthy and happy but there was no help for him in my country at that time and no financial support. My parents had to work and I had to take care of him and to go to school too.

And in her grief my mother forgot that I was a child still, that at 9 years of age you cannot behave like a grown up, you cannot think like a grown up. You need some support you need somebody to share your doubts, concerns and troubles.

At my age I did not think my mother loved me at all. I thought that she was not my real mother, that she adopted me from somebody else. She could never find time to stop, hug me and just tell: I love you, I need you, I cannot live without you.

It would be very simple to say that and I needed those words and I waited for them for many ears but my mother never said them.

She never told me that she loved me and I do not know why.

I am sure that she loved me but it's too late now. She is not in this world with me any more and I cannot ask her anything. But every time I have a chance I am telling my children over and over again: I love you, I need you, I cannot live without you, because I do not want them ever to doubt that.

Drop the mentality of a Martian.

I wonder if you really could preserve your unique national features that reflect what you are as a grown person who came from another country with different traditions, customs, holidays, and way of life?
You emerge from all of that into a different lifestyle, different traditions, and customs. And there is no way around that. Either you have to embrace all new stuff into your every day life or just live like an outcast, hermit, oddity, laughable and pitiful, clinging desperately to your local diaspora of people with same language and cultural origin and way of life or misunderstanding and denying all sense of their new way of life.
It is especially hard to the people of 50+ when age becomes a barrier together with the new language that they do not know. Without a cultural support they might fall into depression and feel like they are useless and worthless. They desperately need to find some place of their own in this new life where they do feel more comfortable and more at home.
It's easer when they have a support of their grown up children but what if not? If they do not have children, don’t know the language, they cannot find a job; they have to survive on a miserable social assistance (if any) and cannot get over language and cultural block.
Everything about your health and well being depends on how you feel. If you are busy with some meaningful occupation, you might not have enough time to feel lost and miserable or worthless. And everybody knows now that’s easer to keep physical health if your emotions are good.
It took me many years to stop feeling nostalgic and sad. I realized that even in a different culture I could find something that I might accept and like. For example things like Christmas and Halloween. Like window-shopping in a big mall. Or trip to the beach on a hot summer day. New traditions and new friends.
Part of me became different but part of me still the same. I still like the same things I loved in my old country, every morning I see the same face in the mirror (just a little bit older and wiser (I hope). But I know I have a taste for new things, I did not have before.
New books, movies, experience, I wouldnever have had in my old country. That’s what life is about and I accept that.
But I see how difficult it is for people who came here really old, at retirement age, may be being retired in their old country.
Yesterday I was passing by a grocery store around 8 o’clock in the morning. It was Sunday, the store was still closed, just about to be opened, but there was a small crowd of old immigrant people speaking Russian, standing there with big shopping bags, waiting for the store to open. Believe me, there is absolutely no necessity to do that on a nice sunny day, on Sunday, not in this country. There is no shortage or deficit of groceries in Toronto! But these people are so used to deficit and shortage in their old country, that they are afraid of doing otherwise.
They think that they might miss some products if they come later. They keep their life style even if there is no sense in it in this country. They do not even see any possibility for them here in their advanced age unable to notice that in this country their life could be completely different – at any age.
You just have to loose what I call the mentality of a Martian. When you think that either: they are idiots, I do not want to now their stupid language and culture (they do not have any) or: I am too old and stupid, do not have any memory, cannot learn anything etc., etc. In both cases it’s not true.
Of course to learn something new requires tremendous effort at any age. And the older you are the harder it is to change everything you are used and accustomed to and learn something completely new. But not impossible. And it’s worth it.
The new experience you’ll get and new possibilities, you’ll see are priceless. Well worth the fight. Even if you are fighting the same old... yourself. Please, believe me, you are not a Martian, it's the same planet Earth and we are all the same earthlings here though a little bit different here and there.