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.

Monday

8:00 one S/M size Banana + 2 Sugarfree baby biscuits

10:00 Papani & Spinkani

13:00 Chicken “steak” + polenta with butter

14:30 Papani (no Spinkani 😟  )

15:30 Hipp fruit bar

18:00 Kaiserka + Cheese + fresh veggies (Tomatoes, Cucumber, Paprika) + few grapes

19:00 Papani & Spinkani

 

Tuesday

9:00 1 egg Omelette with mozzarella + Kaiserka + Cucumber:

11:00 Papani..

12:30 Salmon cooked in the oven + Rice with zuchinni (Salmon she ate two times what is in the plate, rice was given with the spoon from my plate):

13:00 Papani & 1/2 mommy’s nerves instead of Spinkani

16:00 Hipp fruit bar + a taste of Cantaloupe

18:30 Rice with zuchinni + Mozzarella + some leftover polenta

19:30 she fell asleep with daddy without papani

 

Wednesday

8:00 Banana + Prune + Cheese + Baby biscuits… (A bite from each… she was not hungry, she had 4 papani during the night 😲)

10:00 Papani

11:45 Meatballs (beef & pork mix) + Bread + Cherry tomatoes (she ate just half of the meatballs below and gave to Bonnie almost all bread):

12:30 Papani & Spinkani

15:00 Grapes

18:00 two Meatballs + Zuchinni from rice (daddy had eaten all rice, he only left few pieces of zuchinni just so he would not have to wash the pot) + 1/2 fruit bar in compensation

19:00 Papani & Spinkani

 

Thursday

8:00 1 egg Omelette with green onion and Mozzarella + the other 1/2 fruit bar

10:00 Papani

12:00 two Meatballs with Pasta (Pasta she asked for more after eating the ones below):

13:00 Papani + the other half of mommy’s nerves instead of Spinkani 😂

15:30 one full Pear + some baby biscuits crumbs

18:00 Pizza 😂 (I mean some pieces of cheese filled crust from my pepperoni pizza) + Mix of boiled veggies

19:00 Papani & Spinkani

 

Friday

6:45  😐  One full M size banana + 1/2 bio fruit bar

9:00 ~100 ml Bio Yoggurt + 1/2 fruit bar

10:00 Papani & Spinkani

12:00 Vegan lunch experience 🥗

13:00 Papani.. and no Spinkani again

14:00 one baby plate of Strawberries & a taste of Panettone with raisins (while mommy had a coffee)

17:30 Pasta + 1 slice of Gouda + Cheery Tomatoes

19:00 Papani & Spinkani

 

Saturday

7:15 3/4 of a M size Banana & a taste of butter Croissant

9:00 two small Strawberries

9:30 Spinkani without mommy (mommy just finished vacuuming upstairs and she went to “Saloon”)

10:45 120 ml of Nutrilon formula

12:15 Chicken with cream + Baked Potatoes + Baked pealed paprika (mommy redeemed herself by cooking proper lunch)

13:30 Papani & … obviously, no Spinkani

14:30 one full baby plate of Strawberries

17:00 Chicken with cream left from lunch + some pieces of cheese filled crust from daddy’s pizza

18:30 A lot of Papani & Spinkani

 

Sunday

7:00 Scrambled eggs + ~1/2 of Peach

9:00 few baby chips from lentils (we were in a trip, she was chewing on them in the stroller)

11:00 a taste of Beef soup with noodles (not the juice, just the pieces) + Chicken with mushroom sauce + 1 hipp fruit bar

13:00 A lot of Papani.. no Spinkani (because she slept 30 min in the car in the way back from trip..)

16:30 Pasta + 1/2 slice of Gouda + fresh leek + two Strawberries

18:00 ~ 100 ml bio Yoggurt + leftover pasta + 1/4 teaspoon of fresh honey

19:00 Papani & Spinkani

 

Disclaimer: Papani is breastmilk directly from the source, Spinkani is sleep. Aside from the above she had also 2-3 sessions of Papani during the night, last just about 1h before breakfast.

God, I love you so much right now 🙂 Because you showed me, thousand years ago, things I need to know now, to express correctly how I feel and what I want to achieve.

Mercury Retrograde, in Scorpio, is currently transiting conjunct my Ascendant+Venus+Saturn. Challenging times 🙂

That’s it. Basically I only wanted to say Thank you.

Thank you for sending me on this planet exactly when and where you sent me, so I can make my difference!

“Touch me, take me to that other place /
Teach me, I know I’m not a hopeless case”