We are on the beach this weekend. Staying in "Blocade Runner".
April 22, 2011
April 20, 2011
From Russia to Walkertown
From Russia to Walkertown
Natalia Tuchina discusses her newfound home(by Ryan Gay, Kernersville News,
April 19, 2011)
“My favorite question to be asked is, ‘How did you get here?’ I love that question! I always respond, ‘A plane brought me!’” exclaimed Walkertown Library Supervisor Natalia Tuchina.
Tuchina, who is originally from Russia, said she has traveled a long way from her native home.
“Flying here from Russia was not my first flight,” she laughed. “My first flight was from St. Petersburg to Siberia, which takes about the same amount of time as flying here!”
Born in St. Petersburg, Tuchina recalls her birthplace as the cultural capital of Russia. “It’s the rival to Moscow,” she explained. “Moscow is much more a center for finance and politics.”
While Tuchina has visited Siberia, she cautioned with a laugh that she had not been exiled. “I was traveling and writing stories about people. It was very good for me,” she explained.
Tuchina attended university in St. Petersburg where she majored in journalism. “When I started out we didn’t even have tape recorders. We just took notes, which real, raw journalism! It was just talking to the people and listening to their voices and their hearts,” she said.
After graduating from university, Tuchina found herself tired of life ‘in civilization.’ “You get over the matters of the big city at a certain point,” she explained. “I wanted something new and different. So, I went to live on the small island of Valaam, which rests in the largest lake in Europe.”
Tuchina noted that the island, closer to Finnish borders than to St. Petersburg, was only accessible by boat. “The island is lovingly referred to as the Northern Venice because there are so many channels and rivers,” she said.
Tuchina worked on the island for six years as the head librarian in a museum. “The history of that place was fascinating,” she said. “The island’s history stretches back to the beginning of Christianity in Russia.”
Tuchina noted that the island was considered a biospheric reserve. “The land was very pure and the nature was beautiful. A long time ago, the lake was part
of a sea so it has lots of seawater life. There were only about 400 people on an island that was no larger than 8x10 kilometers,” she said.
Tuchina said life in Russia was much like life anywhere else. “You can go to museums and theaters and concerts,” she smiled. “Environmentally it is a
different story. The cities have lots of pollution, fumes and an overwhelming number of cars. There was so much pollution that I found it hard to breathe.”
Tuchina noted that despite reports to the contrary, information has begun to flow much more freely in Russia than traditionally believed. “Google isn’t forbidden anymore!” she laughed. “But, in the Ukraine, YouTube is still forbidden. Countries in that part of the world have peculiar ways of limiting access of the public to information. For instance, only about two percent of Russians not living in a metropolis have Internet connection.”
Tuchina said it wasn’t until 1980 that her family purchased their first color television. “We bought it for the Olympics,” she smiled. In fact, Tuchina has a special connection to the 1980 Olympics. “My father was a helicopter engineer. Russians trust their military engineers to do important political things, which was what they considered the Olympics,” Tuchina explained. “My father was trusted with building the big cauldron they light with the torch once it finally reaches the Olympics. He sweat bullets that night hoping it went off without a hitch. If it hadn’t, we might have ended up in Siberia!”
Tuchina decided to come to the U.S. due to the constantly changing political climate of Russia. “The government actually gave Valaam to the church, since it used to be a big monastery,” she said. “So, I was faced with a choice: convert completely to that religion or find another place to live.”
When Tuchina landed in New York City, her first culture shock was at McDonald’s. “I was so excited to go to McDonald’s!” she laughed. “The first thing I asked was for tea. For Russians, tea means hot tea. They got me tea, but it had ice in it! I said I wanted it hot. They made it hot for me after they heated it up in the microwave!”
Another culture shock came when she resided in New York City with a Russian bishop. “The bishop was of the Russian Orthodox Church and had left Russia in 1917 when the Bolsheviks came to power,” she said. “This man spoke a pure Russian language I never knew! The Old Russian language was destroyed after the Revolution. It was exciting because I actually learned to speak Russian when I came to New York City.”
Tuchina finally arrived in the South after she grew tired of life in the North. “I wanted to experience a different version of America,” she smiled. “I love the weather here and I love being close to the ocean and the mountains.”
So far, Tuchina has used her experiences to educate the community about Russian culture. “I have loved being able to put together programming that educates others on the Russian culture,” she said. “I am open to ideas for what the community would like to see. I want to make the Walkertown library a community center. I see this as a place for people to get together for educational and recreational programs, concerts, authors and get people involved in the community through gardening programs or other ways to give back.”
Tuchina said she is most excited about an upcoming event called the Alpaca Adventure. “Kids of all ages will have the chance to meet and walk with alpacas,” she laughed. “I’ve never seen one of those before.” The Alpaca Adventure is scheduled for May 14 at the library from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
As the supervisor for the Walkertown Library, Tuchina said she has felt very welcomed by the community. “Customer ask me where I’m from and then warmly welcome me,” she said. “I’ve gotten so much support from this community as I’ve become acclimated to the cultures.
People keep asking me if I’m going to stay here in America. I just say, ‘Well, if you don’t mind, I’d love to!’ And I truly mean that.”
March 08, 2011
French Songs concert
Awesome performance of Edith Piaf song by Safiya High at the French Songs Concert last Saturday! Very expressive! I had goosebumps going down my spine...
February 20, 2011
February 18, 2011
mirage of the city
This picture was taken by my friend Herb Burns through the airplane window when he was landing in Moscow. I love it. Salvador Dali is taking a brake!
This mirage I have pictured
February 15, 2011
i am in love with my new library!
Today was my first day in Walkertown Branch Library. I am in love with my new library! It's beautiful, and people are wonderful over there. Look at this community quilt (second picture shows close up). What a great project!
February 14, 2011
Valentines Day dinner
We have celebrated Valentines Day - Nadia made festive dinner with tofu in shape of hearts. Here are out plates :) I need to give Nadia a gift subscription for 'Vegeterian Times'!
February 13, 2011
new job
I will be working as town library manager in Walkertown, NC starting tomorrow, Monday, February 14th. I am leaving Central Library after more than 10 years of work there. I am looking forward to new opportunities.
February 07, 2011
Captain boy, keep on smiling!
Harrison Goode is singing 'Captain's Song'.
"Captain boy, captain boy, keep on smiling!"
Student of 'Golden Key Music Studio', Nadia Bakhireva is the instructor.
I have recorded this video at the 'Music Boat' concert last weekend.
February 06, 2011
very tasty lavender piano
Yesterday we had a concert in Reynolda library. Here are some pictures from the event. After the concert all Nadia's students came up to the stage and sung 'Happy Birthday to you!' song and surprised Nadia with a... lavender piano! The piano was very tasty. We were eating one note at a time :)
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| Reynola Library Concert |
January 27, 2011
'Golden Gates' from St Petersburg
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| Russian Golden Gates |
We had a great concert in the library. "Golden Gates" came from St Petersburg, Russia, to give one show. They ended up giving two shows one after another! People came from everywhere to see them, and I hate that not everyone could get in and enjoy the concert. It was high energy folk performance, very entertaining and educational. I made a little speech before that show and announced the end of 'cold war' :) Everybody got relaxed.
Vitaliy Bezrodnov was so funny and skilfully engaged the audience. Kids had a blast! Click on the picture to view the slideshow.
It was the most attended indoor event in the library history. The door counter got broken (someone knocked it down) and we have no 'leg' numbers, but the numbers of books checked out skyrocketed that Sunday :))) Funny outcome of Russians being in town.
January 17, 2011
Russian Club in the library
I am super-happy to announce the start of the Russian Conversation Club in 2011! The first Class is this coming Saturday January 22 at 2 pm in Central Library. Join us for one hour of free Russian Conversational for beginners of all levels. Olena Crawford, a native speaker and professional second language instructor, will conduct the Club in 2011.
January 14, 2011
art and wood
I came to the library and got instantly happy - the art works by my friend Stan Gilliam were on the walls! He uses woods (and some paint) to create things that remind my Russian folk objects. May be I like wood, trees, everything wooden looks to me and feels alive, able to breathe, live. Stan's art works are bright, cheerful, and different. A year ago I asked him to show his wooden pieces in the library. Year gone, and - here they are! I love them.
January 01, 2011
foggy sunday
This morning was foggy. Milk! It was rain in the forecast, and we went to the Greenway, trying to get our walk done before the rain. We took our cameras in hopes for good shots. Foggy days can be photo-rewarding. Not many people were on the Greenway today, mostly new ones we have not seen here before. Seems that they were working on their New Year resolutions.
We pictured trees (including artfully eaten by beavers!), each other (I finally switched to RAW), joggers, horses (including the horse in the blue coat!) and breathe a lot of oxygen that lasted all day!
December 27, 2010
December 24, 2010
Those monks were on to something...
A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind
We developed a smartphone technology to sample people’s ongoing thoughts, feelings, and actions and found (i) that people are thinking about what is NOT happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and (ii) found that doing so typically makes them unhappy.
We developed a smartphone technology to sample people’s ongoing thoughts, feelings, and actions and found (i) that people are thinking about what is NOT happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and (ii) found that doing so typically makes them unhappy.
Science 12 November 2010:
Vol. 330 no. 6006 p. 932
DOI: 10.1126/science.1192439
Vol. 330 no. 6006 p. 932
DOI: 10.1126/science.1192439
A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind
+ Author Affiliations
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.E-mail: mkilling@fas.harvard.edu
Abstract
We developed a smartphone technology to sample people’s ongoing thoughts, feelings, and actions and found (i) that people are thinking about what is not happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and (ii) found that doing so typically makes them unhappy.
Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed, “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation (1–3). Although this ability is a remarkable evolutionary achievement that allows people to learn, reason, and plan, it may have an emotional cost. Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and “to be here now.” These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Are they right?
Laboratory experiments have revealed a great deal about the cognitive and neural bases of mind wandering (3–7), but little about its emotional consequences in everyday life. The most reliable method for investigating real-world emotion is experience sampling, which involves contacting people as they engage in their everyday activities and asking them to report their thoughts, feelings, and actions at that moment. Unfortunately, collecting real-time reports from large numbers of people as they go about their daily lives is so cumbersome and expensive that experience sampling has rarely been used to investigate the relationship between mind wandering and happiness and has always been limited to very small samples (8, 9).
We solved this problem by developing a Web application for the iPhone (Apple Incorporated, Cupertino, California), which we used to create an unusually large database of real-time reports of thoughts, feelings, and actions of a broad range of people as they went about their daily activities. The application contacts participants through their iPhones at random moments during their waking hours, presents them with questions, and records their answers to a database at www.trackyourhappiness.org. The database currently contains nearly a quarter of a million samples from about 5000 people from 83 different countries who range in age from 18 to 88 and who collectively represent every one of 86 major occupational categories.
To find out how often people’s minds wander, what topics they wander to, and how those wanderings affect their happiness, we analyzed samples from 2250 adults (58.8% male, 73.9% residing in the United States, mean age of 34 years) who were randomly assigned to answer a happiness question (“How are you feeling right now?”) answered on a continuous sliding scale from very bad (0) to very good (100), an activity question (“What are you doing right now?”) answered by endorsing one or more of 22 activities adapted from the day reconstruction method, and a mind-wandering question (“Are you thinking about something other than what you’re currently doing?”) answered with one of four options: no; yes, something pleasant; yes, something neutral; or yes, something unpleasant. Our analysis revealed three facts.
First, people’s minds wandered frequently, regardless of what they were doing. Mind wandering occurred in 46.9% of the samples and in at least 30% of the samples taken during every activity except making love. The frequency of mind wandering in our real-world sample was considerably higher than is typically seen in laboratory experiments. Surprisingly, the nature of people’s activities had only a modest impact on whether their minds wandered and had almost no impact on the pleasantness of the topics to which their minds wandered.
Second, multilevel regression revealed that people were less happy when their minds were wandering than when they were not [slope (b) = –8.79, P < 0.001], and this was true during all activities, including the least enjoyable. Although people’s minds were more likely to wander to pleasant topics (42.5% of samples) than to unpleasant topics (26.5% of samples) or neutral topics (31% of samples), people were no happier when thinking about pleasant topics than about their current activity (b = –0.52, not significant) and were considerably unhappier when thinking about neutral topics (b = –7.2, P < 0.001) or unpleasant topics (b = –23.9, P < 0.001) than about their current activity. Although negative moods are known to cause mind wandering, time-lag analyses strongly suggested that mind wandering in our sample was generally the cause, and not merely the consequence, of unhappiness.
Fig. 1
Mean happiness reported during each activity (top) and while mind wandering to unpleasant topics, neutral topics, pleasant topics or not mind wandering (bottom). Dashed line indicates mean of happiness across all samples. Bubble area indicates the frequency of occurrence. The largest bubble (“not mind wandering”) corresponds to 53.1% of the samples, and the smallest bubble (“praying/worshipping/
Third, what people were thinking was a better predictor of their happiness than was what they were doing. The nature of people’s activities explained 4.6% of the within-person variance in happiness and 3.2% of the between-person variance in happiness, but mind wandering explained 10.8% of within-person variance in happiness and 17.7% of between-person variance in happiness. The variance explained by mind wandering was largely independent of the variance explained by the nature of activities, suggesting that the two were independent influences on happiness.
In conclusion, a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.
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