Life, Travels, and Daily English Posts
I live near a public parking area and usually park my car there. Today, an unusual situation happened. One person cleaned a parking spot and then told others not to park there, as if the place had become her private property. However, cleaning snow or dirt from a public parking space does not make it belong to anyone. A few hours later, other people who parked there started doing the same thing. They cleaned only the spots they were using, and soon the entire parking area was informally “divided” among residents.
I remember that time very clearly. I was a second-year student studying information technology in Kazan. It was only my second year living in the city, and for the first time, I was living without my relatives. That period of my life felt very exciting, and I was eager to explore every corner of the city.
After long hours of studying, instead of going straight back to our rented apartment, I usually took some time to walk around. Most often, I walked through the city center, which was very close to my university building—only five to ten minutes on foot. Around me, there were many of the city’s main attractions, so every walk felt like a small adventure.
Today turned out to be a surprisingly calm and comfortable day, and I understand quite clearly why. The main reason was how my morning started. I woke up early, around 7:45, and from the very beginning the day felt fresh and balanced. The area where I had dental surgery didn’t bother me at all, my mood was noticeably lifted, and my overall condition felt positive. I still find it a bit surprising, especially considering that I went to bed at 1 a.m. the night before. Despite that, I managed to start my day early and without difficulty. Because of this good start, I completed my morning routine calmly, without any rush or unnecessary worries, and smoothly transitioned into my workday.
Yesterday I took a day off, and today, during my lunch, I went to Kazan. I had an appointment at a dental clinic for surgery to install dental implants. You probably remember that I previously installed Brazilian dental implants (Riellen) in my upper jaw, under teeth 24 and 25. Honestly, those teeth were covered with crowns, and their condition was not good enough. I realized this when one of the crowns fell out. After that, I had only two options: install dental implants or use dentures. I really didn’t want dentures. I’m still young, and I can’t accept using them at my age. I’m not sure how comfortable they are, but people who use them say it’s okay.
This time, I chose dental implants from South Korea (Osstem) and installed them in my lower jaw, in the places where teeth 35 and 37 used to be. Those teeth were removed back in 2020, and until today those spaces were empty. They didn’t cause me any discomfort, and they weren’t visible, so I postponed the treatment. These two implants cost $2,152.71, or 165,000 Russian rubles, including all the work.
During the day, several unusual and uncomfortable things happened at work. Because the workday was quite fast-paced, I handled many tasks. Usually, I take one or two tasks and complete them at my own pace. But today, I constantly felt rushed, and I really didn’t like it.
It bothered me a lot. I was forced to switch between tasks all the time and try to figure out many things at once. These were the same feelings I had last summer when I was traveling around Thailand. I couldn’t take a proper break during the entire day and worked nonstop, barely lifting my head from the screen. I think it was my mistake. Next time, I shouldn’t allow situations like this to happen.
Today was the weekend, so I decided to spend the first part of the day at home. After lunch, I went for a walk that lasted about thirty minutes. It was a bit short because the weather was not very comfortable. The temperature was around -18 degrees Celsius, and the wind was strong and extremely cold. Honestly, I had checked the weather forecast beforehand, so I knew about the temperature. However, after about ten minutes of walking, I started to feel the cold on my face. My face wasn’t covered, and the wind was blowing directly into it. Because of that, I decided to end my walk early and come back home.
My trip started at 11:30 AM, after I successfully started my car engine. Before that, I spent about ten to fifteen minutes installing the car battery. The day before, I had brought it inside my house to keep it warm. Since I don’t have a battery charger, that was the maximum I could do. Fortunately, it worked: the engine started without any issues. Overall, these small actions paid off and made me happy, because I managed to leave on time and complete all my tasks.
I also want to share a few observations about the weather. While I was working on the car, the temperature was still around minus 26 degrees. However, the sun felt almost like a spring sun — bright and surprisingly warm. It didn’t bother me at all; on the contrary, I felt quite comfortable while tightening the battery terminals and other mechanisms.
Today, I want to continue writing about my car again. Because I couldn’t start the engine, it became clear that the battery was partially discharged. The starter tried to crank the engine twice, and then a warning message appeared saying that the battery level was low and needed to be charged. There were two reasons for this. First, my battery is more than six years old. I have already mentioned this many times in my previous posts. The second reason was the unpredictable weather conditions, as the temperature dropped to –29°C.
During the day, something interesting happened. When I was sitting and doing my work tasks, my relative came from outside and told me that someone loved me. At first, I was a bit confused and couldn’t figure it out because it sounded strange and hard to understand. After a few minutes, I asked, “What are you talking about? Can you explain it, please?” After the explanation, I realized that someone had drawn a mysterious heart on my car. But it didn’t surprise me, because during the day I had noticed some school or kindergarten kids. They were playing loudly outside and trying to spend time outdoors in the cold.
During the last three days, I was stuck on one of my work tasks, and it was very challenging for me. I was quite busy during this time because my main goal was to understand why the bug happened and how to fix it. Despite the difficulties, I was motivated and really wanted to finish the task as soon as possible.
The task was related to email messages. The main issue was that users were unable to reply to emails. What made the problem confusing was that it appeared only in one specific place, while everything worked correctly in other places. During my investigation, I also found an incorrect HTML structure with strange symbols, but only in one email. This made the issue even more unclear.
Yesterday, I mentioned the issues I had with the delivery. I thought I wouldn’t be able to receive it during the week. Because the delivery time was delayed twice, I completely lost hope. However, today around 3 p.m., I checked the delivery status and saw that it had changed to delivered.
Here I need to explain one important detail. When the status says delivered, it doesn’t mean that I’ve already received the package. It means that the order has been delivered to a special pickup point, and I need to go there and collect it myself. Of course, I could choose home delivery, but for that I would need to pay extra money and also stay at home. If the delivery man arrives while I’m out, the package won’t be delivered. That’s why I prefer a 10–15 minute walk and picking up my order on my own.
Last year, on December 16, I ordered an original Philips universal travel adapter that works in more than 200 countries. Unfortunately, I still haven’t received it. The first estimated delivery period was from January 4 to January 9. Then it was postponed to January 10–19. Today is January 19, and instead of receiving my order, I got another notification saying that the delivery has been delayed again.
Honestly, I really hoped that today would finally be the day I received it. Instead, I received another excuse. Because of this, I decided to message the shop manager to ask when my order would actually be delivered and why the process is taking so long. I’ve been waiting for more than a month now, which feels unreasonable.