Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

College admissions consulting has a straightforward premise: those who are experienced in the admissions side (through a combination of getting into top universities themselves and years of experience helping others succeed) provide expert advice to high school students who are going through the process for the very first time. In any conversation, who is the teacher and who is the student is supposed to be very clear. The high school student, or more precisely, their parents, is paying for the time to be taught how they are supposed to present their near future in a way that is attractive to university admissions officers.

Several years ago, this blog concluded in a post that the meaning of a doctorate is related to a particular career option, not a reflection of the Ph.D. holder's intellect. The time was my early days of coming back to academia, right after a couple years in the East African outback for an American non-profit. The idea of getting back into the books after two years in the maize fields still felt new and exciting. Being an academic was still a viable option, made worthy of consideration when thinking about the joy of doing fieldwork in countries around the world.

Walking down the street, having lunch by oneself, staring at the sky...life is full of moments that seem to be in between more important events. Yet, even as one physically takes a break in between those important events that require full concentration, one's mind never really does. The mind always wonders, for a purpose if needed, and aimlessly, when there is no particular urgent need. Some would define aimlessness as boredom, and try to find some aim to end the boredom. Scrolling through social media on the train, knitting a sweater at night, writing this blog...they can all constitute intentional attempts to be productive.

Distrust in the state and supposed professionals run deep in Russia. For an ordinary Russian, the need for "fixing things up yourself" is ingrained , as there is too great of a chance that unscrupulous individuals with fake licenses charge too much money for not much professional results. From fixing homes to administrating medicine, many Russians do it by themselves, assuming that their amateurism is still more efficient and less deadly than the risk of paying money to the wrong people and facing the deadly consequences of their falsified expertise.

The "Happy Birthday" posts on Facebook seem to be sparser than usual. As the average user of the social media platform becomes older, it has become more and more difficult to keep them engaged and communicating with their equally older friends. After all, older people are busier. They have children to attend to, subordinates to manage, and more responsibilities at work to ponder over. What is more, with more of a stake in work and private life, they are much more cautious about their public image, and try to avoid leaving digital footprints. So many of them have Facebook profiles that stay the same for years.

The recent Barbie movie has in many ways caused a (positive) uproar among the world's feminists. The movie portrays the world of the titular character in which women hold all the powerful roles, while men (the many "Kens") are relegated to positions of mere "boyfriends" whose identity is defined solely by their relationship with the Barbies. The protagonist Barbie's belief in the superiority of the system, coupled with observations about, unlike in the Barbie world, many females remain lowly in the real world, serves as a powerful reminder that female empowerment still has a long way to go but is a worthy dream to pursue.

"I don't think I have anything unique to say about myself..." I get this comment a lot when I speak to teenagers . Not that I am surprised. Not only did I not know what the future held when I was a high school student, I could not confidently that even now, 35 years old and half a dozen jobs later, I can clearly pronounce my passions in professional or private life. Scary as it might be, even more than twice as old as some of my students, I am often not in a position to provide them the one thing they are looking for – a simple, straightforward answer to narrow down their career choices based on their existing interests.