Far from home

Living far from my wife and our baby wouldn't be so difficult if it were not for the great moments that I miss every day. In the last few weeks my son started walking - I wasn't there to witness his first steps. He's learned to punch (with his little fist); the first (and main) victim was his cousin, a little girl 4 months his senior, who until that point always beat him. He has, in the last few weeks, developed an interest in chasing and torturing the cat; he follows it wherever it goes and, gripping it by its fur, "plays" with it. Poor, patient animal: I'm so thankful that it hasn't scratched him so far.

I miss him so much that every time we talk I ask my wife to hold the phone close to him so I can hear his breathing. He tries to grab the phone and, once he does, doesn't give it back. He bites his mother, his uncles, his cousin. He probably tries to bite the cat when he's on his own.

I look forward to seeing him walk, even run, the day we meet. I even secretly wish that he'll run towards me and I'll lift him up high, landing kiss after kiss on his cheeks and neck. Except that this is wishful thinking. Because it is very likely he'll not recognise me when we meet. He probably won't have forgotten me completely by that time, but he'll not easily recognise me either.

Thus, when I think about the sacrifice that I'm making, the rewards of this self-imposed exile seem very dubious.

Death cometh to Cambridge

The festive season is about to come to Cambridge and all the university buildings will be closed for at least 10 days. So will the Grads Cafe on the 3rd floor of the University Centre building, where I like to spend some time off my daily work, reading newspapers and having cup after cup of relatively cheap coffee. So will the many other nice and cosy places where one can go when in need of a change. The town will be literally dead for these 10 days and, because I do not enjoy Christmas, this time promises to be quite boring.

My room is cold and sitting there from morning till night is not the prospect that I look forward to - but it seems that's where I'll spend the dead season.

A melancholy dream

An image visits me out of the blue, a melancholy dream that comes to me while I'm wide awake; in it, I see my baby son in my grandfather's garden. The boy is barely two years old and it is autumn; he chases one falling leaf after another, trying to catch it in its flight before it can join its withered brethren covering the garden ground like a thick carpet. Late afternoon light of late October sifts through the few leaves that keep stubbornly holding on to their branches, forming long straight light sabres that pierce the crowns of the trees above and burns bright orange spots in the leaf carpet. My baby notices neither the melancholic beauty of his surroundings nor the silence of the world that has held its breath listening to him play; he merrily goes on with his game, as mindless of the history attached to this familial garden as he is of the struggles of manhood that await him in the world of tomorrow.

My baby is my greatest teacher

Since he was born eight months and three weeks ago, my baby son has changed me a great deal. He has made me happier, of course, but he has also made me less cynical, less angry, less bad. He has made me a man in full, added to me the bit that distinguishes a man from a father. He is teaching me to be a good father, and I hope I'm making progress. He's given me a new life.

He has made me believe that there is happiness in life, after all. That happiness is to watch him crawl with a big toothless grin on his face in my direction every evening when I come home from work. That happiness is to wake up in the morning and smell his tiny belly, his soft and smooth skin, the fuzz on his head. That happiness is to see him rub his little nose with his tiny fist before waking up every morning and blessing me with one of his sleepy early morning smiles. That happiness is to be touched, even scratched sometimes, by his plump hands. That happiness is listening to his breathing at night.

He has taught me to think more about my parents. Playing with him every day, feeling happy for his every little achievement, I feel a glimpse of what my mother must have felt looking at an 8-month-old me. Pride, happiness, love. I understand my parents better now, looking back at my own childhood and viewing them and myself in a different light. I understand now what my mother meant by saying "You'll never get it until you get your own child." My son has taught me how difficult - and joyful - it is to be a parent.

He has taught me to view other people not just as strangers, but as somebody else's children. It is the deep understanding that some time ago every one of us was a little baby who basked in the unconditional love of their parents. It is the ability to view the world through the eyes of a father, not just an ordinary man. It is the ability to feel, or at least imagine, the happiness and the pain of others. My son has taught me to think about - and feel - things I had never thought about before his birth.

Having my son has taught me to imagine the pain of those who lose their children. It has taught me to fear that possibility. I fear it so much that I am ready to die to prevent it. It has taught me to feel, not only to understand, the pain a parent feels when their child suffers from physical pain, injustice of any kind, loneliness.

But it has also taught me to take care of myself. To look both ways when crossing a street. To keep my feet warm. To keep out of trouble.

My son has taught me to be a grown up man. He is teaching me a new thing every day. I am trying to be a diligent student. I am relishing every second of this education. And I want to relish it until the day when it will be my turn to teach him things.

On happiness

I've had my own moments when I couldn't see any reason to live. I went on living because I couldn't die. I wasn't suicidal, I'm talking about the moments of deep, even visceral understanding that life is nothing but suffering.

I've changed now. I'm happy. My son is my happiness. If I'm asked now why I was ever born, I'd answer: "To see him smile when I come back from work". To listen to his "dadadadadada". My whole life with all its sufferings and hardship is glorified the moment when I see my baby's toothless smile. This is happiness and for me now there is no greater joy.

Re: childhood memories

One of the most remarkable memories of my childhood is the death of my grandfather (paternal). I remember it to the day - it was on the 19th of November, 1989. I was 7+ years old, a kid in a Russian elementary school who spoke very little Russian.

That day my mother told me we would be going to the grandfather's (we lived in the town and all my extended family lived in the village) - a trip I always took with a lot of excitement and joy. As a town boy with not many friends, I loved going to the countryside where, basking in the attention and affection shown by my relatives, I spent whole days playing with my childhood friends. Most of the days I stayed at my maternal grandparents' house, but my father grew up 10 minutes' walk away from there, so sometimes we would there with my father to eat grandfather's apples and almonds.

I don't have too many memories of my paternal grandfather - I know he was a grim man who did not mince his words, who swore a lot, even when he wasn't angry, for which he had earned a reputation among the countryfolk. He had a deep and somewhat hoarse voice, with which he would greet me every time I visited him. He was a WWII veteran and I liked to study his war medals, which my grandmother kept wrapped in several layers of cloth in one of the chests she kept in her bedroom.

That day I walked with my mother to my father's childhood home and found a crowd of mourning people. The scene that I remember most vividly is my father and my several uncles lined up to the wall and crying in mockingly high voices, letting out in between sobs words of mourning, something like "Oh my father, why did you leave us?" This looked eerie and frightening even for a 7-year-old kid, but I calmed down when my mother explained that that was the custom and that the children of the deceased have to honour their memory by crying loudly in public. A theatre of a kind.

Re: the modern brain

The modern man has to feed his brain more than his ancestors used to. Our brains have evolved into information- and energy-devouring machines that we have to tire until they want to sleep, just like little babies are. The modern man feeds his brain with bit after bit of information from morning till night (and from night till morning, in some cases). While some brains are easily satisfied with the day's lot of work and enjoyment (8 hours of brain-feeding in the office and a couple more on the sofa watching TV or leafing through a magazine), others are insatiable beasts who keep asking for more. The Internet is one reason for this addiction - there's so much fun on the internet (in near-infinite quantities, with googles and facebooks to help us make our way through all this abundance) that this type of brain relishes. And for those wanting for more there are all kinds of games and other brain stimuli that help quell even the most restive minds of all. All this Content is fed into the brain so that it doesn't have to stop to think about itself and the sheer absurdity of its existence - so that the man is not left alone with his being, to borrow Sartre's phrase. The ones who produce and control the Content - control is the more important of the two words as, in our days, production is outsourced to users themselves - are thus the future rulers of the world. Think about it for a second - millions (if not billions) of hungry brains attached to their computers (and through them, to the System, or the Network, however you like to call it) from morning till night (and some even at night, when they come back from the Office), googling and facebooking and tweeting, reading articles, watching porn, chatting with other hungry brains, writing their own Content in tiny corners of the Internet Universe (just like this blog) - feeding their brains that nonetheless keep asking for more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more....

Re: On breaking points and early MLC

A thought occurred to me while I was crossing the street a couple of hours ago: most men (I don't know how women perceive the world and their place in it, but most of this must be true for them too) experience a breaking point in life when they realises that life didn't turn out the way they had hoped (and maybe were confident) it would. The thought visited me when I started to inadvertently count the bypassing Chevrolet Lacettis and Epicas. How many, I thought, they are - tens of these cars passing me by in a single minute - tens of people who can afford such a car, who earn far more than I do. Whereas to earn such a car I would have to toil and save (with my current salary) for at least 7 to 10 years, cutting on other liberties and little treats, such as buying good clothes and fancy gadgets (like Amazon Kindle), or bowling (which is quite expensive here in Tashkent), or taking my wife to a restaurant.

Such thoughts might raise questions inside, like "Is what I have been doing (the path I have chosen) right?" And when someone asks this question to himself, this means they have reached the first milestone in their life. What they do from then on (stick to their old lives or try and change) will define how they live the rest of their lives.

Re: Comedy and comedians

I have always said that I don't like comedy as a genre of cinematography. I don't find Adam Sandler and Chris Tucker funny. I'd rather watch some melancholic and thoughtful stuff by a little-known Asian cinematographer than chuckle at the funy lines by Woody Allen characters. I don't understand the secret behind the success of Eddie Murphy films. I simply can't enjoy comedy.

That said, my favourite writers and speakers are all comedians. I deeply enjoy every word uttered (and written) by George Carlin. My favourite columnist is Charlie Brooker and I like reading Rod Liddle's pieces full of profane humour (although I don't always subscribe to Rod's ideas in general). Stephen Fry is among my all time favourites, not only in TV, but also in books and other stuff. And there are many others who I cannot remember right now, but who are there.

Is it me, or is there something wrong with comedy films?

Watching my baby sleep

There is no joy in the world greater than waking up next to your baby son, watching him sleep, turn in his sleep, rub his nose with a little fist of his plumpy hand. If somebody asked me "what is happiness?", I would describe this particular experience among the happiest moments in my life.

Paul Auster's new book

I had to see the Paul Auster page on the Wikipedia - the page I've read maybe a hundred times - to learn that the great writer has released another novel since I read - with great pleasure - his last work, Invisible. The title of the book is Sunset Park, Amazon lets you read the first eight pages or so and, as it always happens with me and Auster's books, I'm totally hooked and can't wait to get my hands on the novel.

I don't know what exactly makes Auster's novels tick - is it the polished, highly readable language? Or is it the plots that take you around New York streets, following one lonely soul after another? Maybe it's the red notebook (a standard spiralled 100-page lined notebook), which is present in almost every novel he's written? I don't know. It must be the combination of all those things and much, much more. In any case, Auster is among the very few writers (Orhan Pamuk is among them) whose every work fills me with inspiration, excitement, and joy. I like to think that these writers are my distant friends whom I have never met and who write the very books that I'm waiting to read.

Joys of fatherhood

The past weekend was full of anxiety. I felt Sartrean nausea, trying not to bend under the weight of my troubled existence. But if there was one thing that helped me live through the dull Saturday afternoon, it was the joy of playing with my son, having him in my lap, talking to him in his language of uuuus and aaaas, thinking about his future.

Looking at him I think about the feelings my father had looking at me, the anxiety he might have felt, but not expressed, about life and everything that comes with it. I am becoming such a cynic that I'm no longer upset when faced with tough luck, but when I look at my son and see how pure he is, I try not to think about the difficulties that await him on his path. Indeed, life has the power to turn us from little angels to begrudged beasts.

About the memories that fade away

The night my son was born, I was alone in my room in Ichinoya dormitory, Tsukuba, Japan, six and a half thousand kilometres away from my wife and our baby. The night was very long, I had nothing in particular to do, which made the night even longer. In the end, after hours of nervous waiting, I heard my son's voice over the phone.

The next four days I spent in Japan were a great mixture of emotions. I was very happy, perhaps the happiest man in the world, although I couldn't yet fully grasp that happiness. I was a little melancholic, the way people feel a few days before leaving a place they have become attached to. And I was very exhausted with all the packing-up and other leaving procedures, like cancelling mobile phone contract, closing bank accounts, paying the health insurance fees left over, etc. Amidst this maddening week or so, however, I have several great memories which I didn't put down on paper for some reason (although I have a thick thought notebook for such things).

I was riding my bicycle along the short but dark bicycle road to IIAS Tsukuba, a big mall in the outskirts of the town, to look for something I now don't remember. It must have been some clothes or toys for my son, who was born the day before. It is more likely that I wanted to kill some time and raise my spirits - walking around amidst large crowds and spending several hours between bookstore shelves usually inspires me.

It was getting dark as I rode to IIAS, and the little forests (or maybe I should describe them as groves) that line the bicycle track were breathing really cool wind - it was a bit too chilly. There was a new moon in the dark blue sky - a thin and shiny slice of cheese on a dark tablecloth. It was, perhaps, this combination of being on my own on with the crescent on a dark and cool bicycle track that put me in a melancholic mood, but I soon started thinking about my son. The baby who was born only several hours prior to that, whom I hadn't seen, who was so far away from me as it was impossible to imagine the real distance. I tried to communicate with my son, to speak to him. And it was then that I had the idea that I should write a diary or a collection of regular letters addressed to my son, in English, something he can read when he grows up and understand the feelings I was experiencing at that moment.

I became so excited with the idea that were I not riding a bicycle, I would start writing the first entry right away. So I made a mental note that I would write a note about that night for my son to read, but later, when it came to start writing, I didn't know how to begin and so left it at that. This is the first attempt to document that night, and if I see fit, I will write down other experiences from my life.

On saved-up luck

One of the pillars of religious or otherwise superstitious perception of the world is the way we believe we have a log of good and bad deeds kept for us by some heavenly office. We think that if we're good, we'll be rewarded, and vice versa, as if there were a reservoir for good and bad deeds, where daily or monthly balance sheets could be kept. In this same way, when things don't go our way we usually say "I'm saving up my luck for later," as though we can regularly check the universal luck counter that God (or the Universe, or whatever) is keeping track of. Thus, we think God (or the Universe, or whatever) owe us something (rewards, more luck in the future) for being good, or just for undeserved (in our understanding) suffering.

The truth is, the Universe doesn't owe us anything. It doesn't care. We can be good for our whole lives and not get a lousy penny as a reward in the end.

Pray for Japan!

Apocalyptic images coming from Japan every day. We watch news channels every hour to see if the hell that broke loose is coming to an end. This is so horrific that it seems unreal, images of cars swept, like matchboxes, off the coast and on top of nearby buildings, hundreds of villages and towns flooded with black water and mud, corpses lying face down in corners where the rescue workers haven't been able to reach them. This is a nightmare and I wish I could wake up and forget it.

Ibaraki prefecture and the beautiful town of Tsukuba, where me and my wife stayed for two years, is not too far from the epicentre of the earthquake and, more importantly, the Fukushima nuclear power plants. We have tens of friends at Tsukuba University, many of them ryuugakusei, like I was during my time in Japan. Their Facebook statuses sound scary sometimes, but the first day I was happy to read them. I was happy to hear any voices coming out of the disaster. Things seem to be returning to normalcy lately, but the fear of new quakes and nuclear plant explosions hangs in the air.

I hope this hell will be over very soon and the Japanese people will resume their lives, a little scared, maybe, but also a little more experienced, with bruises, but stronger than they were before the catastrophe. I really hope Japan will soon forget all the pain and suffering caused by this disaster, but remember the most important lessons - that the Japanese people acted as one and kept together. Many nations would crumble and never find their footing after such an apocalypsis, but not Japan - I am sure they will be back on their feet pretty soon.

I am not someone who prays regularly, but I will do so for Japan and those who are in pain. Pray for Japan!

Japan's worst earthquake in more than a century

When many of my friends started writing about tsunami in Japan, I didn't take notice. And then there was a Facebook status from my former professor about the earthquake. He was in his office (I've been in that office many times) and books fell off his two ceiling-high bookstands, he had to stop two wobbling computer monitors from falling.

Now, I have experienced many earthquakes while in Japan and by the end of my stay there had even learned not to be scared. My wife would often wake me in the middle of the night, scared, but I would just say "It will soon end, go back to sleep." And it would end soon. If I remember correctly, the worst earthquake I had while in Japan was 6.5 degrees on the Richter scale.

But this one seems to be a really bad one. I have many friends who live and study in Japan and I'm somewhat worried. From Facebook messages it looks like there are no casualties or injured in Tsukuba, at least among the people I know. I hope there will not be.

On fatherhood

I am a father for four full months now and this period, besides being the happiest in my life, has made me have second thoughts about many things in life. Most important, so far, is how I think about people and treat them.

Before, I used to judge people as my equals, fellow earth-dwellers, contemporaries - just people. I didn't care much about them unless they were close to me, I didn't think too much about the feelings each person has inside. Now that I am a father, I see in every man or woman somebody's child. Everybody wants only the best things for their offspring, and for me my son is currently the centre of all universes. I can't help looking at people through their parents' eyes and this makes me reconsider most of the ways I treat people.

Next time I have to be cruel to somebody I will not be cruel - I will just put myself in their father's shoes.

The Big Bang Theory

I try to avoid sitcoms and drama series, but I have to admit that I'm getting addicted to the named sitcom. Reasons: (1) it is smart, it makes you think, (2) lead characters are played excellently: Sheldon is great in more than one way, Penny is sexy and sociable, Leonard is an epitome of a good guy, the other two guys are also peculiar, (3) the dialogues are great, and I am big fan of dialogues ever since I first watched Pulp Fiction.

Re: A new post in a long long time

It has been a long time ago that I last updated this blog, and there have been some important changes in my life. In this post I introduce them all and, erm, promise to write more.

First off, I have come back home from Japan and thus my blog needed changes in the title and the subtitle. Which I made today. The new title is, I have to admit, the first thing that came to me, and I let it hang there until I find something better. I also changed the theme, as my not-so-numerous readers might notice. This new theme is somewhat too clunky with its big font size and a little clumsy-looking in my eyes with its right-hand alignment and the tags on the top, but at the moment I don't really care about being neat and clean. This change is good, for a change.

Secondly, I became a father last November (the same month I came back from Japan) and my life now is a whole lot more different than it used to be. If you have a kid you might understand me without any further ado, but even if you don't, I can't make my feelings clearer because it is so WOW!

Finally, I have a full-time job now (at the same place I used to work before I went to Japan and when I was writing this blog) and I am quite excited about it. It's full of interesting challenges and I can't wait to see the first results of my work in the next several months. I won't be talking here more about my job, though.