You realize how hard it really was barely when you stop… and allow yourself to smell the roses. And allow yourself to feel.

With passing also the Audit and Assurance exam, I completed my Advanced Diploma in Accounting and Business, which is a degree equivalent in study time, effort and knowledge with a Bachelor Degree in the UK System: 9 exams (one I had exempted) plus one Ethics module. I passed all these exams from the first attempt, while studying all by myself, with no tutors or classes held by a study provider.

Another Degree, 100% in English, all alone, my first exams ever in English, with no English studied in school, 15 years later after the one in Commerce, Tourism and Services in my natal country.

How I really did it? Well, for the first 4 exams I studied in the evenings and weekends, after a full-time job, while playing Hearthstone. I didn’t even have a printed book, I had the study material only online. And having that game running with a timer, kept me alert and focused, otherwise I would fall asleep or even start daytime dreaming, while pretending to study.

And the last 4 exams I did them during maternity leave. By reading from my phone while breastfeeding and between changing diapers, by rehearsing the topics in my mind in the dark while putting baby to sleep at night, by begging and negotiating with my partner for few hours of baby-time in the weekends, by literally falling asleep over the book or over the computer at just 10 in the evening. By levels of stress you cannot imagine and I don’t wish to anyone. All by myself alone, each with a 700+ pages Study Book and an Exam Kit just as big, with the pencil, eraser and pocket calculator, being driven by all the emotional unfulfillment that I lived in the past 10+ years, trying to prove to myself that I CAN do it.

Last year in August when I had the exam for the Czech Language, for Permanent Residency (it was not mandatory in my case, but I wanted to do it, so I can have a motivation to study more), while waiting between the written test and the oral test, a part of me was wishing to fail it.

Why? Because when you succeed all the time nobody sees how hard it really is for you, they just see success and expect even more success. When I left from there at 4 in the afternoon with the “approved” paper in my hand, starving and wondering how I haven’t fainted yet without lunch, the last thing I was thinking was how proud I am… I was just feeling guilty and ashamed that I left baby at home with her dad, while he had also a full-time work day and now I am eating all alone at our favourite restaurant while waiting for the bus to take me back home.

When I wrote on Linkedin that I’m very proud about my part-qualified ACCA diploma, and describing some of the stuff I stumbled upon along the way, I was actually not feeling anything at all. There were no more feelings left in me. I got over 900 likes to that post and over 50 connection requests, majority from other ACCA students. I couldn’t feel anything.

Yes, I know I still have 4 exams until getting my full ACCA Qualification and I wanted to do also Strategic Business Leader in June, the first one from the equivalent of Master Degree level. I was very diligent, I had a lot of drive, I read almost all study book and made my own notes, in just one month. I had so much drive and, barely now I realize, so much naivety.

When I started to study the specimen exams and the previous exams for this paper, I decided to also type everything down from the answers, to learn the correct spelling for more words, and I had a shock with how much I actually have to write in this 4h exam and how much I have left to study to feel confident about passing.

Suddenly the idea of doing this exam was causing me claustrophobia. I was literally feeling like drowning and I couldn’t gasp for air. There are times when acknowledging the effort implied by a big step like this is bringing me higher energy, excitement and the necessary drive to jump on the other side, but this time I had to face the fact that the hole is just too big. Suddenly I lost all confidence on all the English I know and I had the impression that everything I know is wrong and everyone will be judging me only by my mistakes. By all the mistakes I did during all my life. And no achievement what so ever, as great and hard as it is, can erase those.

So yeah… I take a break for now. I had even booked the exam 2 days before the deadline, just to cancel it in the very last day…

Aside from moving baby into her own (still unfinished) room and closing breastfeeding (proudly celebrating 10 days now papani-free), changes which also caused me a lot of stress, I am planning to make even more significant ones in the days/month to come.

Just for my future reference, I am currently facing the transit of Saturn square my natal Ascendant + Venus + Saturn and Sun + Mercury + Venus + Uranus conjunct Descendant.

Too much said spring, it’s 7°C outside and feels like 4°C even if it’s sunny..

Yesterday I had my ACCA remotely invigilated CBE session exam for Audit and Assurance. With baby and daddy upstairs… because baby is sick and day-care is closed anyway for 3 weeks due to lockdown.

As for the exam, either I’m too naive or I really did study the best for this exam (I mean, I did start studying for it in October..) because I finished it with the feeling that I did everything, I mean, I don’t know of anything that I did wrong… but for an ACCA exam if you think you did everything you should reasonably expect a 75-80% result… besides, it was the most narrative exam, zero calculations, and I didn’t have the time to check again everything for spellings and I’m painfully aware that my English grammar is not perfect…

So, in order to tie my knowledge-loose-ends I’m adding to my to-do plan for 2021 to take some English classes and pass the IELTS exam with a C level.

And I also want to resume my Czech classes, after passing the language exam for the residency paper last year I remained with a slight aversion for the language, but now I just installed an app to help me study further.

I’m putting aside the renewal of the driver’s licence and the buying of another car… because I need to prioritise my health. I mean, my weight. I mean, my weight loss… so I need a more fat-burning solution… like finally putting a baby-seat on the bike, I think this year she is big enough for one.

So.. baby started kindergarten in mid january, day-care level… she supposed to go 3 days per week for 4-5 hours a day… but after just two weeks she came down with the pox. Some very small ones… but she still needed to stay home for 2 weeks.

Then, she started again but after just 2 weeks she caught something else, this time with industrial quantity of buggers and coughing and breathing issues… So she is not going again. Both because she is sick and also because all schools and kindergartens are now closed.

I’m also not feeling at my best, I have congested nose and a slight cough and I need industrial quantities of sleep.. but yeah.. I take what I can. Last night I was exhausted, I went to bed at 21 and slept until 6 when baby woke us up (and by woke us up I mean jumping all over us, pulling our hair and asking for attention) and then I started working in the bathroom, in pajama, while brushing my teeth… as I took vacation last week, because my stress level achieved an ATH, I had a lot to catch up, even if I’m supposed to work just 2h/day.

Now I’m writing this with baby watching YouTube videos in Spanish on my chest and literally coughing in my face and stabbing me with her elbows in my boobs.. Welcome to mommyhood..

Thankfully she eats well.. this morning she ate her bowl of cereals and then she ate half of mine also.. she was like… “you are not eating it anyway, you are too busy… working over the breakfast table”.

Last week we had two days with over 15°C when I hanged laundry outside and played with baby with chalk on the pavement, but in the night of the 2nd day she woke up literally pink, coughing her brains out, with 39.3 fever. So yeah, guess whose guilt level also achieved an ATH!

Wait she got pissed off by something and she threw the phone. Perfect mommy’s daughter.

Long story short.. after about 10 days I finally got also my smell back and my energy. For the past 2 nights I even went to bed at 22:00 and I felt rested and eager to start the day in the morning.

I even went back to read from my Audit and Assurance book.. That would be the last exam from the Applied Skills module, this is what motivates me…

Otherwise, I don’t know if is the fact that now I have time to study barely in the weekends when baby sleeps (because during the week I work), the covid or my personal attention deficit disorder (not officially diagnosed) but I still don’t understand much from this topic, because I didn’t have any contact with audit or assurance before… Maybe after I finish reading all the chapters I will be able to make more sense out of it.

And to procrastinate even more, yesterday I ordered the books for my first topic from the Professionals module: Strategic Business Leader, because I couldn’t resist the 30% off Black Friday discount. Ok, it was Saturday. Did you know that this exam is 4h long? Anyway, I saw in the contents preview that it has some chapters on some topics I am curious about. I mean, more than audit&assurance.

And what else… not much really, I don’t feel myself in much mood to write lately. And I hate this new blog writing tool/interface from wordpress. I could just daydream all day long. Except from when I have to parent. And work. And cook. And do laundry. Ok bye for now. Today in her 1.5h of sleep already, I barely read one page and remember not even 10% from it. It snows so peacefully outside. Day-dream mode I told you.

Yeeey!!!

And I started watching Suits. And it came to me the idea to do a mock LSAT test, I found a practice one online. Just for fun. And for keeping my neurons sharp. I will let you know the result, when I will have time for it.

We are still waiting for baby’s transcript of birth certificate. Because, you know, in Romania it takes 1 month to put a stamp on a paper. More or less.

Anyhow… I’m really hoping we will have where to go back to CZ and they don’t file for total quarantine, considering the amount of reported positive cases lately.

While doing my EPSM module from ACCA I had a small revelation. I was saying more than a year ago that school systems as we knew them are bound to slowly dissolve, even faster now thanks to this covid crisis.

And to add something a bit more tabu, aka astrology, we are in the middle of a Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto transit in Capricorn which means a significant transformation of work systems for the better. But you can google this if you want more details.

So.. as the traditional school systems will dissolve, kids will start to embrace online curriculums which will give the opportunity to be followed at each one’s pace. So the smarter you are the faster and farther you can get. The advantage is that intelligent kids will not be bored in class anymore and the slower ones will not develop anxieties and be bullied anymore based on their results. Specializations will be much easier to follow from young ages because there will be no more standardised school subjects and no more national tests on all disciplines for all kids in primary schools. The borders from countries and languages will also dissolve, thanks to technology will be able to understand ourselves in real time with basically anyone.

The problem will be for us to adapt to the new times, not for them. My baby surprised me today when she was touching a button on the screen of my laptop and I had to explain to her which tools are touch screen and which not. At 1 year old.

We bought her a mock play phone and she liked that she has songs but when my dad wanted to pretend with her that he is talking on the phone she looked weird at him and she brought him my smart-phone: “Gran’pa, if you want to call someone use this one, that one is not a phone. Is just a lousy toy.” 20 years from now, the smart-phone that I’m using now will be the “rotary phone” for our kids. Can we even imagine the future?

And something else, the governments and the school systems have no interest at all to introduce subjects like “healthy eating”, “sexual education” and “financial planning”.

We, as a race, we failed just about when we started to make advertising campaigns for medications and vitamin supplements. I haven’t watched TV for a long time but now being back in my home country for vacation, I’m shocked to see how many commercials we have on… drugs. I will not be surprised in the future to see commercials on TV for drugs that are now prescribed for ADHD and spectrum disorders just to enhance kids abilities. More drugs more money more drugs.

But to conclude in a positive note: the best skill that we can steward in our kids is genuine curiosity. Curiosity is the best vitamin and energiser.

Au trecut așa repede două săptămâni, nu am avut timp nici să mă duc la coafor. Așa că mai stăm. Are birocrația grijă să ne îndeplinească cele mai subconștiente dorințe. Adică trebuie să mai stăm, ca să așteptăm niște acte, de care depind alte acte.

Pe scurt: ca să pot să-mi reînoiesc buletinul meu trebuie să depun certificatul de naștere al bebelinei în română. Adică originalul în cehă cu formular multilingv atașat nu e suficient pentru autoritățile noastre române. Pentru că, în Cehia se pare că nu e suficientă cartea de rezidență permanentă, pentru a-mi face buletin acolo. Sau Dumnezeu știe.. Adică mi-am mai omorât mii de neuroni și pentru asta… mai mult sau mai puțin degeaba.

De fapt am început postarea asta voind să scriu că mă simt mai bine din punct de vedere emoțional și nervos… așa că trecem repede peste aspectul legislativ. Eu am făcut tot ce mi-a stat în putință, acum lucrurile se petrec în afara zonei mele de control, deci nu mai am de ce să mă mai stresez.

Azi m-am trezit cu poftă de croșetat. 😄

La ACCA am început modulul de Etică și Abilități Profesionale (EPSM), care trebuie parcurs și absolvit înainte de P-uri.. E interesant dar luuuung.. Într-o săptămână abia am parcurs 6% din el. Apoi mai am de dat și Audit and Assurance din F-uri, dar poate acest modul îmi face tranziția mai ușoară (adică eu tot sper că am făcut suficient la Taxation cât să-l trec… abia pe 20 Octombrie aflu rezultatul).

În rest… cu munca, pregătim fișierele de raportare pentru FY21. Și mi-aș dori să mă plimb și prin București cu bebe vreo 2-3 zile înainte să ne întoarcem. Că de mers la mare nu cred că se mai pune problema…

Ieri după-amiază, în timp ce bebe se plimba cu bunicii ei, în curtea grădiniței cu program prelungit – în care am învățat în primii mei 3 ani în Câmpulung, după 3.5 ani trăiți la țară la Jugur – , m-am auzit zicând că dacă iese Elena Lasconi ne mutăm înapoi şi o dau și pe ea acolo.

Dar realitatea e alta. Adică mult mai complicată…

Cât m-am plimbat prin clădire să votez, nici nu am apucat să mă uit măcar în jur. M-am visat de nenumărate ori pe acolo în ultimii ani, dar pentru mine “căminul” a fost o perioadă mai mult sau mai puțin traumatizantă, în timpul comunismului… cel mai mult îmi amintesc de toaletele alea cu vase de wc extrem de reci, fără capace, unde mirosea constant a clor. Dacă închid ochii și acum îmi mai amintesc acel miros. La câteva luni după “admitere” am făcut pneumonie bilaterală… 4 săptămâni de injecții. Apoi, când ajunsesem deja la grupa mare, acolo am leșinat prima oară (sau cel puțin, prima oară când îmi aduc aminte), în timpul unei repetiții pentru serbare..

Sper că s-au mai schimbat lucrurile de atunci.. Atât în comfortul din clădire cât și în calitatea educatoarelor și a metodelor de educare, și că se vor schimba și mai mult în continuare.

Dar, să mă întorc de tot în Câmpulung (adică eu cu bebe)… deocamdată nu se pune problema asta. Mai sunt multe alte opțiuni până aici.

If you don’t own a YouTube channel with at least 10.000 Subscribers or a Tik-Tok account with God knows how many are there, it’s like you don’t exist in the 2020ies. Or if you don’t have shares in Amazon, Google, Facebook etc preferably purchased at least 5 years ago…

Anyway… This week I learned something that shocked me… You know, in those times when I didn’t know if my baby will last inside of me until term or if I will get to raise a preemie, I got familiar with several YouTube channels of young/teen moms. There is Allie with Cartia, the couple from Australia with their amazing Penelope, Maddie who got pregnant at barely 14, Sophie who got twin boys in her last year of highschool and Cam&Fam. In the meanwhile Claire had a sister and is expecting another sibling, the Duggars had… I lost the count… grandchildren and expecting more.

Now… About Camryn from Cam&Fam. When I first found her she had just given birth to a 33 weeks old preemie. In the meanwhile she and baby’s dad got married and had a 2nd baby. About a month ago, the 19 years old husband, father of 2, hanged himself in the garage.

At first I didn’t know what to think about it… now I just blame the times. We are living some horrible times. We are at a point in the human evolution when we’ve gained so much awareness about mental illnesses (and gender dysphoria) and you have so many sources of information, yet so many people are too ignorant about them and hate and bully and worse. What worries me is what these kids born after 2000 have to fight everyday… probably only they know. The social pressure in the online is tremendous. At least YouTube came with a good idea of stopping the comments sections to the channels that portray the life of minors. For me is intringuing why so many kids and teens nowadays are diagnosed with ADHD or Spectrum Disorders and end up becoming addicted to the medication.

I am very scared for my daughter. So many things are changing. You really don’t know how the school will look like 5-6 years from now. Social distance for kids in primary school? This is not only utopic, but torturous. Social distance for kids in highschool, when they are discovering their bodies and the emotions between them?! Yeah, Good luck, Charlie.

The work system that most knew, collapsed. So many lost their jobs. For me, personally, this was an advantage, as I’ve been working from home for several years and it got me the opportunity to come back earlier than planned, to a very flexible work-schedule, but, with a small baby at home it would be impossible to work a full-time schedule like this, and God, I’m yearning about it so badly, as I would hate to fall behind in my career. I think this is what drives me (crazy) the most.

I even wanted to say at some point that, aside from those 25 mil reported Covid cases that tested positive so far, probably another 25 mil people “tested” positive to some form of mental illness. I think this is the real pandemic.

Myself, in particular, I’m very close to request depression medication. I’m not writing it as a complaint or as a “poor-me, save me”, I am not even angry anymore. I am just accepting the fact that I am not the way I was anymore. Ok, I’m still breastfeeding, plus some other stuff I have on my plate, that have left their mark on my nerves. But, hopefully from now on the pressure will slowly decrease and I will start to wake up with a smile on my face again. After at least 8h of sleep/night.

I didn’t want to write earlier because I wanted to have also something positive to share, aside from the fact that baby now has 8 teeth and 4 molars and she is walking by herself like a pro and even “doing” gymnastics.

And what else I’ve been doing lately… aside from taking care of a baby almost 24/7 and also working 2h/day, in average…

So, I passed that Czech Language test for Permanent Residency. I wrote about it on Facebook, I don’t wanna go back to that (feeling) again. On Monday I should go to retrieve my final Permanent Residency paper. But whether this will entitle me to a Czech ID with permanent domicile, I honestly don’t know.

Then, this Tuesday, I had the ACCA exam on Taxation, the Czech system. After getting stuck in traffic for almost 1h on the highway and fighting with her dad because we were not agreeing which route to take, baby threw up in her car seat, just 5 min before arriving to the parking lot in Brno.

It was the first time in her life when she throws up. Then, she was looking so much better and composed, it was just a one time thing, but it marked me, emotionally, as I was already there in the back with her and I didn’t know if I should take her out from her seat if she is chocking or not… Anyway, I entered into the exam worried and stressed for leaving her. I had a fight with her dad again, because I asked him to go with her in the stroller and buy her a new car seat and he wouldn’t. At least they went and saw it, the one we agreed on, but they didn’t buy it.

I felt like the worst mom in world when I put the baby in the way back home in the same dirty car seat. We cleaned it with wet wipes as much as we could but it was still stinking. But she slept like an angel the whole way back, 1h&45min without saying anything at all.

So yeah… I have no idea if I’m gonna pass this exam, especially because of one 10 points question that was probably intended to be easy, but it blocked me, because it was the first big one and it was from the introductory chapter… I had stressed myself so much to go through all the past exam questions from the Exam Kit and I was reviewing each main chapter again, each week, but it simply didn’t cross my mind to at least read one more time the introductory chapter. So I lost too much time trying to write something to that question and then I didn’t have time anymore to finish what I actually knew how to solve. And that Excel place where you write your answer is horrible, because you cannot see the Cell reference when you click on one formula, among other things.

Now… I am seriously flirting with the idea of 2-3 weeks vacation with the baby in Romania. We just have to go to the notary and get the papers so I can take her out of the country just by myself and then I will buy the plane tickets. But now I’m stressed because the reported Covid cases in CZ have increased too much in the past days and what if the austrians come again with some brilliant idea of closing the borders. Because I’m flying from Vienna, is closer, faster and also much cheaper that from Prague.

So… That’s about it for now. I’m trying everyday to find reasons to look forward to. There are so many things that don’t work out and I have to change, but I don’t have that much energy to fight in that many battles.