Dreaminder is a free tool that helps people remember what we want from our lives. Reflect on your life, your dreams, your vision for yourself and write it into the box on the website. Then set the date when you want to be reminded.

Here's how Dreaminder helps you remember your dream:

1. Write down what you want out of your life

2. Send it to yourself in the future

3. Start working towards your dream



On the day in the future when you receive your dream, you can see how far you've come. You can congratulate yourself, or revive your dream and continue on the path that is right for you.

www.dreaminder.com

I did so exactly one year ago, and today in the morning I received what I wrote then. It was a strange feeling :)



I've written some goals I'd like to reach in a year and now I'll copy them here almost the way i received... just a bit translated from my language.

• I have traveled a lot, I have lived sometime abroad!


• I developed many soft skills.. I'm much more fluent and confident in Italian and English...


• I have a high self-esteem !


• I have many opportunities....


• I am needed.


• I have a person whom i trust my life..


• I have a clear picture of my future...

I found out that i've completed most of the goals by the first quarter of the year...

So in general I've completed about 89% (raw calculation :D) of my goals ;) which is COOL!





This time, together with my friend Tata, we decided to write down our goals and dreams for 1 year and read them together meeting in our favorite cafe :)



See you on this page in a year ;)))

I've never been a feminist. Never even thought about taking of men's traditional functions upon myself :)) Nevertheless, I've always dreamt of becoming a strong woman and have been always trying to strive for excellence - be smart, manage both career and family, bring a positive change into the society.

One of the most annoying things since my teenage years was when my guy-mates were telling me "you're a girl, you cannot do that", "there are no any outstanding women in IT industry", "Women are made for raising children and not for career", "woman's brain is blablabla", "women programmers are a myth" and stuff like that. Being well determined and serious about getting into the IT, and specifically, the programming sphere, it was irritating me much and I was always disputing with them. I was trying to convince that they are mistaken, and I was really getting offended. Now I understand how silly it was then... and how thankful I am to that guys :)

They actually made me to become one, they were convincing me that i couldn't, and made me prove them wrong. ...and i now think, maybe I had a motivation to do it to spite them :)

I wouldn't be the way I am now *, if it wasn't them and if i didn't have other people believe in me. These people weren't trying to convince me anything, they just believed and didn't put obstacles in my way, they they simply knew I could. and I knew it too :)



* I never mean that I'm a super professional now, but I've had certain achievements :) Probably my most valuable achievement is that now I'm sufficiently confident in myself - own skills and strength. I consider it to be very important :) And concerning my profession in IT sphere, I dare to claim, I've exceeded my own expectations. 

A bit into my experience: I've worked in a web development field and was doing well in PHP & MySQL programming, but code-writing annoyed me in a while and my further deepening in programming was pointless, so i quickly started exploring new fields e.g. management, e-marketing, social media, SEO, etc... and now i hold a managerial position in my company, leading a team of programmers and designers (some guys didn't have anything else to do, but to express an opinion that i wasn't just competitive as a developer, which is, of course, not true :) 

And by the way, i'm self-taught (never took any IT or programming classes, except the ones in the university, that had nothing to do with web development).





Of course I still sometimes face discrimination towards myself and encounter injustice just because of my gender, but I try to enjoy the challenge and I just become stronger ;)

I encounter it at work (where some of my colleagues weren't taking me enough seriously at first) or when my salary didn't increase by the same amount as my male colleague's, that was hired at the same time as me and did the same job. I encounter it in personal life too - some guys have confessed that they'd prefer less smart girls, so that they'd feel themselves superior. (no comments)



Here's when one of my favorite self-created quotes was born:

"Trust me, sometimes I'd also prefer to be one of those stupid and careless blondes..."

Well, you know, i also laugh at blonde jokes... and i have had times when i was feeling myself blonde (when it was taking me long to get into some simple things), but I explode, when people treat me like a blonde, being confused by my non-geek look, especially at work :) (our IT admin had hard times recently... :-D)



I started writing this post after reading Amata Alieva's posting in the Forgotten Diaries blog where she was describing the discrimination she faced in her country.



So the points of my post are: you shouldn't treat anybody by stereotypes (be it a girl in IT or "Legally Blonde"); changing mind in doing something just because somebody said you can't - is stupid; obstacles and challenges just add you a good experience and make you stronger and wiser.

Recently I discovered a new sort of fun in YouTube - called misheard lyrics :)



it's the lyrics of a song (usually in other language than English) 'heard' in a funny way and sometimes with a graphic presentation :)



i laughed a lot at Hoppípolla (Sigur Rós) Icelandic song's English interpretation:





another version:







Misheard lyrics of Disturbia by Rihanna:







and this one is for those who know Russian, it's EXTREMELY funny :D



"Что на самом деле пел Билан на Евровидении"





upd: a bonus from Dragostea din tei (O-Zone)

We won! Moreover, we defended our chempion status ! (Armenia won Gold the previous Chess Olympiad 2006 in Torino too).



Here's our team:

• Levon Aronyan


• Vladimir Hakobyan


• Gabriel Sargissian


• Tigran L. Petrosyan (who was my classmate for some short period)


• Artashes Minasian

During the final round, Armenia's only win came on board four where Tigran L. Petrosyan beat Chinese Li Chao.

Thank you Tigran and others!



And here's a nice photo report from the finals.





...and if you watch statistics of winners by each year in the wikipedia, you'll notice that USSR and post-soviet countries were almost in no competition for the recent decades.



For the second consecutive Olympiad, top-seed Russia failed to take a medal. From 1952 to 2004, they (and their predecessor the Soviet Union) never finished below second place.  (Guardian)

We won! Moreover, we defended our chempion status ! (Armenia won Gold the previous Chess Olympiad 2006 in Torino too).



Here's our team:

• Levon Aronyan


• Vladimir Hakobyan


• Gabriel Sargissian


• Tigran L. Petrosyan (who was my classmate for some short period)


• Artashes Minasian

During the final round, Armenia's only win came on board four where Tigran L. Petrosyan beat Chinese Li Chao.

Thank you Tigran and others!



And here's a nice photo report from the finals.





...and if you watch statistics of winners by each year in the wikipedia, you'll notice that USSR and post-soviet countries were almost in no competition for the recent decades.



For the second consecutive Olympiad, top-seed Russia failed to take a medal. From 1952 to 2004, they (and their predecessor the Soviet Union) never finished below second place.  (Guardian)