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Belgium and her delicious food
Let’s stay in Brussels for a while and explore little bit of Belgium. How do we judge a country? How do we make of it a definite impression? What is it what comes on our mind when we think of our travels to a particular destination? Architecture? Museums? People? And how do we remember a… Continue reading
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Belgium, a country of bon-vivants
By the end of my first year in Brussels, I managed to finally settle in. I was nineteen years old when I had arrived to Belgium to study for a bachelor degree in interpreting and translating, and therefore, was probably young enough to embrace my new surroundings faster and with a relative ease. In the… Continue reading
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Studying in Brussels
On the first of September 1995, I presented myself at my new place of study: The Institute of translators and interpreters in Brussels. It was a twenty-minutes pleasant walk from the house where I rented my room, and I was determined that I was going to be a good student and do well. It was… Continue reading
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The basement
It was the end of August when I arrived to Brussels to do my studies in French in 1994, and was greeted with the warm shine from the sun when I woke up on my first morning in the country of my new residence. However, the moment of contentment didn’t last that long, because I… Continue reading
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Oh Brussels
After my unfortunate experience at the airport, once we emerged with my stepdad onto the Belgian soil, the sky looked grey, ready to pour down with rain any minute. Despite my encounter with the customs’ officers I was still more or less optimistic about my future in my new country of residence. I was only… Continue reading
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Moscow and the arrival of capitalism
I was a teenager when the Soviet Union collapsed and suddenly I found myself in a new country and in a new regime. As things go in life, when you have to live through the unbelievable, you adjust pretty quickly, especially when you are young. Still, the changes that my country was undergoing right before… Continue reading
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Not quite welcome in Brussels
I was nineteen years old when I took my first flight to Europe, in order to study in Brussels in French. I remember how I was dragging two huge cartoon boxes first to the luggage point in Moscow and then towards the custom area in Brussels. I was crying the whole time during my trip,… Continue reading
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Forever expat
What do you become when you end up living in 4 different countries for many years in each of them? What kind of identity do you create, having being immersed in various cultures, languages and walks of life? Is it a massive valuable experience or a very difficult life road, where one ends questioning one’s… Continue reading
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The Mad Teacher
We all have the potential for madness, but the degree of its manifestation is what really matters, in order to be considered as mental, or just slightly eccentric. The amount of crazy people though is very likely to be on the increase, considering the society in which we are living, not helped by the consequences… Continue reading
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Overcoming the odds
Everyday I get up and keep going, despite multiple psychoses behind. Everyday I overcome a terrible feeling of shame and show up to the world for the sake of my son. I can do it, I tell myself, and I fight for the space on earth – I still managed to create with my diagnosis… Continue reading
About Me
I am a doctor of philosophy, a university lecturer, and a lover of cats, fine wine, dancing, theatre, and human eccentricity. Born in the Soviet Union (Moscow), I grew up in both Russia and Donbas. I am fluent in four languages, and have spent all my adult life studying (except from 18 to 19) working and living throughout Western Europe. Despite a surname-Netchitailova- that translates from Russian into English as “unreadable”, my great passions in life are reading and writing. My personal struggles have made me appreciate the manifestations of weirdness that exist everywhere. My novel ‘Elena: A Love Story for Humankind’ telling a story of a Russian pianist, diagnosed with schizophrenia, looking for her twin sister in England, can be found on Amazon.
Porcupine's wisdom 