Meet Dmitry, Journal Entry #1.

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Dmitry Yakovlev
Hey everyone, name’s Dmitry. My friends, relatives, and everyone I’ve known closely since my childhood have called me Dmitry, not Dima, because that’s the name my parents gave me. I used to get really annoyed when people called me Dima in Russia, but since many English-speaking people find Dmitry hard to pronounce, I no longer mind the short version of my name, though I do appreciate when people try. Anyway, I didn’t plan to spend the entire first journal entry talking about my name. So, instead I’ll give you some background that made me the selfish bastard I am now… just kidding. I once opened a random page in the book called “Stuff White People Like” in the Baruch bookstore and saw a chapter on “Self-deprecating Jokes”. Yeah, I tend to stray off-topic occasionally when I recall a story, of which I have too many, that relates to a situation.

Anyhow, back to my background. I was born in Ukraine in October 1991, scorpion, just like my dad. Soon after I was born, my parents took me and moved to a scarcely populated town, what is now known as Priozerny, in the middle of endless tundra in Siberia, Russia. They initially planned to stay there for only a year or two to work, but before they knew it, we all got very attached to the community and then found no reason to leave that amazing place. One thing about living in such a harsh environment is that you just wouldn’t survive alone. As a result, concepts of real friendship, brotherhood even, loyalty, and respect were early and irrevocably engraved in my mind. Trying to describe the countless events, some of which were life-threatening ventures that I managed to live through, in this blog would be silly and unnecessary, and would take way too much time. Briefly put, I had the happiest and most eventful childhood I could imagine anyone having, for which I’m forever grateful to my parents.

However, when I was 14, life took a rather unexpected turn – my parents won the annual Green Card Lottery hosted by the US Government. Half a year later my parents and I left everything behind and flew across the globe to reunite with my mom’s sister’s family who also won the lottery 6 years before us. Since in my family education was never a problem and was taken for granted I had no trouble learning the new language and adapting to the new environment. Nostalgia hit often and hard, but I eventually I forced myself to deal with what I’m given and make the best of any situation.

I was extremely lucky with finding the right friends at the right time who also happened to be Russian-speaking immigrants. They surprisingly shared many of my values and having met them separately, I introduced them to each other and we stay strong till this day. Nevertheless, I’m always happy to meet new people and experience new things although it takes some time for me to open up; I don’t cling to every stranger I meet.

Baruch was far from being my first choice school and, being rejected from most others, I had little choice but to accept the offer. But once again, I can’t be lucky everywhere and I actually enjoy going to this school. My future aspirations include discovering a career that I’ll truly appreciate, learning French, and maybe another language or two, and making the most out of my present life.
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