When years make sense

Whenever I encounter a year in my readings I tend to measure it according to my mother's year of birth. Roosevelt was first elected a president 28 years before and the Watergate scandal took place 13 years after my mother was born.

Last week I had a lunch conversation with a Belorussian student about our respective families. She is now a junior and had not been home, in Belarus, since her arrival at college. She told me that she was the only child of her parents. She told me that she missed sitting at the kitchen table while her mom was preparing dinner. She told me that her mom was her best friend.

How can you take someone away from her nostalgia and loneliness when you know how pure and real these feelings are? They bring images of warmth that the mind freezes and idealizes. They guide you through what is important in life and what will be kept forever virgin.

The Belorussian girl told me that she missed her parents but did not miss her country. She, like many other citizens of ex-Soviet republics, recognizes two distinct concepts of home country--the beloved one associated with parents, childhood memories, and friends, and the hated one associated with bureaucracy and corruption. It is the motherland versus the government.

Although I left the Belorussian girl to her nostalgia, I did tell her something reassuring during this lunch conversation. I told her that my mother had a birthday in a week, on March 12, and that I was about to send her a postcard.

Work in Tanzania? Why not!

No doubt the economic downfall is threatening the living standards of millions of people worldwide. But could it lead to any positive results?


My friend Yana visited a non-profit career fair held at Columbia University last week. She told me that the administration there was highly overwhelmed with the number of people who showed up. This was, apparently, their biggest turnout in a long time.

Most of my fellow college students are actively looking for summer internships and post-graduate job positions on Idealist, an interactive Web page for non-profit organizations, volunteer opportunities and various causes with international dimensions.
Honestly, I think this is wonderful. Now that many students realize Economics, Finance and Business majors won't necessarily lead them to stable career paths in prosperous industries, they start to approach alternative professions.

I am witnessing a massive expansion of minds. Spontaneous questions and quick answers circulate in the college atmosphere: "Public education policy? Why not!", "Work in Tanzania? Why not!"

The economic crisis brought job losses in many industries like banking and investment. But maybe it also brought employment options for all those people unsure about their future careers.

Salt it before you taste it?

In Russia, people insist on having their three-meal courses consisting of a soup, a main dish and a dessert. As soon as we received our soups in the Smolny school cafeteria, I would reach for the pepper and my Czech friend would reach for the salt. It was a habit, a mechanical action that came before we had gotten anywhere near touching the spoon. "You are being prejudiced," accused us laughingly our American friend sitting at the other end of the table.


We were being prejudiced against the soup. We hadn't tried it but we already knew it was lacking something. You might laugh over this incident but I took it very seriously and applied it to life, in general. If one salts a dish before tasting it, then what prevents one from judging a person without knowing him/her?

The principle behind this practice of adding salt and pepper to a meal was important. I admit that, even though I try to be as open-minded as possible, I do judge people prematurely. I still approach many life situations with preconceived notions. But as much as I want to taste the soup before I put pepper in it, I know it can always use some more.