soothingly adrift

It's like you're tryin' to get to heaven in a hurry

And the queue was shorter than you thought it would be

And the doorman says, "You need to get a wristband"

You got a lift between the pitfalls

But you're lookin' like you're low on energy

Did you get out and walk to ensure you'd miss the quicksand?

Looking for a new place to begin

Feeling like it's hard to understand

But as long as you still keep pepperin' the pill

You'll find a way to spit it out, again

And even when you know the way it's gonna blow

It's hard to get around the wind

(c) Alex Turner

I am drifting on a bed, dwarfed to a sliver by those grey boisterous waves.

My dreams are shattered. Well, after all, I'm alive, I'm not imprisoned (my hand treacherously prompts me to type in "yet"). For the first time in a while, I went to a yoga class this evening. I was frequenting them before, but then the coach had to stop teaching yoga, and the whole thing was put on hold. She and her husband are flying to Turkey tomorrow. The borders seem to be closing; I've heard of some planes being forced to return to Russia on what seems to have been completely spurious grounds.

I spent the last six years working for a global company. I wouldn't think of myself as not intelligent. But I guess I'm not smart. Had I been wiser, what...what would I actually have done?

Okay, I always felt passionate about chemistry, since the age of nine. I couldn't have thought of another field. I was fascinated with science. I was genuinely willing to become a scientist.

The sanctions imposed after the reunion with Crimea (folks, you know, there's the omnipotent secret agent reading what I'm typing in) hit the economy hard, the currency collapsed more than twofold. Pursuing a scientific career was off the list. Finding a decent job proved to be difficult. I had to work at a coke oven plant for more than half a year after my graduation (my GPA is 4.8/5, mind you). Only then was I lucky enough to land my current job. Had it not been for some of my connections, they wouldn't even have heard of me. This is not to say that I was stupid or shit. I believe I knew chemistry fairly well.

The following three or four years were marked by prosperity, albeit relative. My salary wasn't as exorbitant as that of, say, IT specialists, but it was more or less decent. I was fairly well-off. The benefits were also good. A leased vehicle with virtually free gas, free meals, affiliative style of management. I could do my work whenever I wanted and nobody cared how much hours I clocked up. I would go to some plant at 9AM and leave at 12AM. Something along those lines.

They sent me off to the Netherlands five years ago. It seems like a fucking dream. That twenty-three years old me. A cosmopolitan and debonair Russian on a business trip to Europe. Everything seemed so promising. It seemed like my perseverance would help me carve out a decent career and land a job in Europe.

Three and a half years down the line. December, 2019. I'm selling my own flat to move away to a better one. I have some savings, at least, enough to arrange everything. The monthly installment was hovering around $200. I was earning around 900. Well, with all the perks and lower cost of living in Russia, it's decent. I was performing well, and I was expecting what seemed to be my well-deserved promotion.

Then came the pandemics. Hiring and promotions freezes were soon to follow. So be it. I had some things to enjoy. I met a woman that was to become my wife one year down the line. I tended to my work. I developed a tool that I thought would help company make profits. Well, they said that I was smart, that it was solid and what not, they finally gave me a promotion. Everything seemed to bear a semblance of normality. Granted, I wasn't as well-paid as some IT guys, I was location-bound (unlike them), but I felt pretty content. Like, I don't have aptitude for IT. I was always doing what I was good at. A translation hustle on the side popped up, and I wasn't slow to seize it. These five months were nice.

And now that the floodgates are open and the shit is inundating. The side job is gone. The primary job is uncertain. Our contracts won't be reviewed. They say, our compensation is calculated in $ and then translated to the local currency once per year. Now that the ruble collapsed, my real disposable income followed the suit. This is non-negotiable. Added to this are the sanctions, troubles with logistics et cetera.

Long live the great general Jaruzelski,

Long live the unsurpassed comrade Fidel Castro,

Praised be Nicolae Ceaușescu,

Let's give our kudos to Mikhail Gorbachev!

Forever we all, all — pilgrims in Korea!

I hope we will stay afloat and swim ashore.