English articles

The dog journey: Part II Relations

The dog is human’s best friend – famous russian proverb

The angle of the article is based on the relationship aspect which is in my opinion not often discussed and therefore would be interesting to read about.

When Lulu, my female akita, came into my life, she managed to treat my former wounds that were taking time to heal. In a sense, we all dream about the ideal friend who supports us and for me, Lulu quickly became this ideal dog friend. Here I would like to discuss a bit about the concept of friendship, similar to human friendship. We dream that friends would be always close and funny enough our childhood friends are beside us. While the dog is 24/7 (remote work setting) nearby! At the same time due to being “other kind of animal”, there is always some distance between us and the dog (e.g. no verbal communication) that does not lead to being tired of each other. Dogs are able to bring a lot of joy, this kind of simple playful joy or pleasant emotions from cuteness or petting. And probably something that dog owners go crazy about is how often the dog shows signs of love and devotion. My neighbors whom Lulu likes are waiting for the moment when Lulu will jump to try licking them and a serious-looking grownup person can not resist this kind of temptation.

The relationships with a dog are not exactly the friendship type of relations due to the need to take care of the dog and be the leader. So here comes a bit of the parenting aspect. However the more we care about someone, the more we get attached to this creature. The same works for dogs, the more we care, the more we get attached. With all that being said, the positive moments coming from the dog outweigh far greater other aspects that might be considered as difficulties.

To be fair enough, not everyone feels all those positive emotions that I just described here and dogs are not for everyone. That was an insight for me when some guests visiting me revealed that they are afraid of dogs and try to have some distance from them. I remember I was even recommending a pet as the way to make the depression milder, but the presence of the pet matters much less for some people.

Keeping the relationship angle, similar to choosing friends, it is important also to choose your dog friend. At least, I do not equally like all dog breeds, and some of them I might even be afraid a little (like fighter types of dogs). I guess one of the reasons why my attachment is so huge to my puppy is because I understood that her breed is the one with whom my interaction would probably be the most enjoyable one. Lulu barks rarely, is quite confident and curious about the world, affectionate, and gives me the space to be alone. Sometimes I have the moments when I want to recharge myself or get emotional support and go to Lulu to lie down near her, hug her or put my head on her “fluffy but” and she is loyal to accept in dog’s opinion probably impolite behavior.

One of the transformations happening inside of me is becoming milder. First, after watching programs about dogs’ upbringing there is much mentioned about being strict and in addition, Akita’s require to have a strong leader. So I tried to be strict and gain this leadership. Sometimes, I was angry at her for not listening to my commands after numerous attempts, for the mess created while I was away, or for barking. Looking back now, I see that my anger came from not enough experience in understanding the dog world better. For example, barking was coming from unfamiliarity with the new place and feeling not confident, messing was caused with the stress and not being sure yet if I come back. I am grateful for the cynologist, who taught me much how to bring up Lulu and understand her better. With knowing her behavior mechanisms better, now I do not feel angry anymore for most of the things that can be explained. My huge plant has been falling several times, balcony furniture has been scratched but I felt so calm and just had to take the action to possibly prevent similar events. At the moment Lulu has the teen rebellion stage and again after understanding this and taking action, there is no place for bad emotions (though first I got angry for Lulu to keep lying down on the grass and not proceeding any further). Now that I am writing this, I wish in a similar way we could understand people better so, that it would be hard to get angry with them 😀

With that, I want to conclude that like any other relations, the relations with the dog change us, and with enough effort and consideration can bring an enormous amount of joy and support to our life.

June 19, 2021 0 comment

Les Miserables 2021

Learning from others essentially strengthens the friendship and enriches both people, so in a sense we become more complete. With that value realized, I remembered a recommendation of a book by my twin friends: Les Miserables. My pragmatic part refused to read such a large book in the first place (around 1.5K pages and 17 years of work), so I decided to watch first a film adaptation of the book. Then I was lucky to find 2018 British series consisting of 6 episodes that contained much more details compared to previous musicals. While reading the book, I was impressed how many important moments were included to the series, though some of the plot parts were changed.

With the series I felt a variety of emotions that I wanted to live through again. Partially it was related to having a lot of sympathy to all injustice I have seen so far in the country I was born. Les Miserables clearly contains a revolutionary spirit and speaks a lot about injustice in the society, and subsequently was banned for a while, e.g. by Napoleon III or tsar Nikolai I.

Who are the people that Victor has devoted his novel?

The les miserables == “miserable people” are people rejected by society. Many of them started as innocent and

hard-working people, but a small mistake could have turned them into the rejected ones. The status “rejected” can not be taken back and people have to live with it, tolerating all injustice towards them.

Say Jean Valjean’s story: while being an orphan, he took care of his foster family and made an attempt to steal the bread to save the family from hunger. In the first place, why society did not provide people with ways to earn the money to have food? People were at times in a desperate situation and with the attempt to find some food, they are punished as the one who committed the crime. But who actually has committed the crime, a person trying to survive or the society not providing the opportunity for food? Hugo asks these types of questions from us, daring to be surprisingly direct in his moral discussions.

So Jean gets into prison, which in theory supposed to bring a person to a good path, but does it fulfills its goal? On the opposite, it rather puts a stamp of no-worthiness, where the only feeling the person gets is hate. A prison transforms some good people into embittered people who are supposed to be easily controllable. Rejected people back then had a yellow passport, which made others ignore rejected and treat them badly. So Jean Valjean till the rest of his days feels ashamed for his past of being convicted to the extent that he had to distance himself from the person he loved the most.

After having spent 19 years in prison, Jean becomes free. That does not mean he knows what to do in his life since in prison he has seen only unfairness and exploitation of people like him. People around do not meet him in a friendly way, refusing to give food or provide a place to spend the night, due to his rejected status. One of the most memorable moments of the book is when the priest plants a good seed in his head by treating him like a decent person. Jean Valjean after a nice dinner with a priest, has stolen s silver spoon set from his house. We would expect the priest to be angry,

but instead, he took a word from Jean Valjean to become a good person. Jean probably stroke by priest’s kindness have slowly changed into the person, which the priest could see in him. I think that for Hugo it was especially important that the person would be a priest and he certainly depicted the priest as the most kind-hearted person spending almost all of his salary on charity. Later the same church saves Jean again. In psychology quite often they recommend treating people as you want them to be, but the hardest is to go against the herd opinion of rejected people.

The book depicts the process of Jean Valjean’s spiritual growth, where he faces the dilemmas related to justice and keeping the promises and finally being ready to give up his freedom when the mission to save his beloved Cozette and his fiancé is accomplished. The author pays great attention to all thoughts and worries that Jean had to deal with to make the decision to show as well that the path to becoming a better person is hard and mental stones would never make his life as pure as it was before prison.

Unfortunately rejected people exist today, though the definition and scope are different. Those rejected people might be placed in prison because of their political views or the fact that they tell the unwanted truth or made too good business. Jean Valjean was arrested the second time due to taking the coin dropped from a child’s hand. Rejected people live in fear of being attacked again which so dramatically affected the lifestyle of Jean. He had to live unnoticed, to avoid the idea of living in one place, and even did not get a chance to be loved by a woman. He continues to devalue himself despite contributing to society, like by leading a factory and supporting people in need. That generosity and dedication to others strike me a lot. Jean Valjean is portrayed as a man that everyone would like to be close to, however, which suffers inside from insecurity that he got due to being rejected. The need to keep secrets and the inability to share and always rely only on yourself makes life really lonely. However, Cozette makes his life meaningful and worth fighting for her.

I believe that Victor Hugo hoped for huge changes in the law (to make have more justice and humanity) and for the decreasing abyss between the rich and the poor. Looking at the current situation, we definitely progressed but the desire for power, prestige, and money is still in the minds of people and ideally should be used for making this world a better place. The less separation we have, the more safety and certainty we have in the future, where everyone could happen to be on the wrong side of the wall.

P.S. The book for me is far beyond one aspect depicted here since Hugo made an epic novel covering the most crucial aspects of our life. Looking back now, I feel satisfied to devote several months to this book. In a similar way, huge and aspiring things take time, but with careful selection, it is definitely rewarding to go along this way, step by step, and eventually feeling satisfied with the journey, lessons, and the fact that something was changed inside.

June 17, 2021 0 comment

Symbolic photo with me, my brother and a random dog

The dog journey

Perhaps rather a typical story when a kid asks parents to get some pet like a cat or a dog. My parents had a good excuse: an allergy. So we had an aquarium that my father diligently polished it once per month and was proud of it the most in our family. Later we got several canaries the first of which I was especially attached to but there was no way of real petting the bird although I tried.

During my childhood, russian winters were especially cold. If the temperature would be below -30, then we could spend a day at home. I was truly waiting for these days. Back then kids during winter time used to wear fluffy fur hats that I could not stop petting. My friends laughed at me that I will not miss any soft hat.

Only now I know that touches and softness are something that people and kids are desperately seeking for. So hugs should be perhaps prescribed by the doctors to prevent from certain conditions 😀 In summer there was an opportunity to chase chickens in the village where I used to spend a part of my summer. That might sound cruel, but they were very soft and my best friend unlike chicken owners supported me. That is somewhat funny that despite being close to nature, chickens were the most available animal to pet in the village.

Only recently I came to know that petting similar to human touches can give this nice feeling of closeness and release of oxytocin hormone. This is the same hormone that mothers get to raise a child and get pleasure from it despite all the difficulties. This was the hormone that apparently is produced while petting an animal.

Village chickens in action

The decision to buy a dog came slowly. Before that, it was only distant admiration (especially during Covid times) and sometimes petting of other dogs. Somewhat, I needed to come to a realization that I was in a situation where it is finally possible to have a dog. Obstacles to that were numerous reasons, especially for practical and reasonable people, why it is not yet the time to have a pet:

I am the only one to take care of the dog!
What if I want to travel?
How will it be when I will have a family and a baby?
Will I have enough free time?
What if I move abroad and have to rent the apartment?
and other rational and irrational concerns

There were two turning points that led me to the decision to buy a dog. First was one of the young lady who seemed to be quite smart but still young and light-spirited to say that dog is a responsibility but you will enjoy taking care of whom you love. This positive look at owning the dog stroke me compared to all warnings about how a dog is a huge responsibility. Society and especially finnish attitude to owning a dog (dogs are really important members of the society here) makes you feel even more responsible than getting a kid 😀

My second turning point was a small accident after which I reconsidered my life priorities. Accidentally due to a combination of food poisoning and sauna, I lost my consciousness. Alone at home with no one close nearby. Though it happened before, I felt how quickly I can be turned off from this reality and what if that would be not a temporary thing?

That made me think strongly “it is time to live to the full now”. I should do now what I consider to be true and valuable for me and postpone less. I thought that if I like dogs so much why should I listen to others (including my mom against me having a big pet) and wait for the ideal moment? Why other’s fears should scare me from something that I am so much attached to? While considering a dog, only one person encouraged me much not to postpone buying the dog and partly taking care of her dog before made me more confident in my understanding of what it means to have a dog. Some people were being skeptical about dog size, about responsibility, but I had to go forward and search for my puppy.

Her majesty Akita

Knowing what you want helps a lot in life and so in choosing between dog breeds. My desired features were related to a dog character, including being somewhat independent, smart, calm, and to the exterior, like being fluffy, mid-size and cute to my taste. Character-wise, in fact, I wanted the dog to mimic my character a bit since I can not imagine myself being with a very fast and active dog, which speed I would not be able to follow. Smartness means a lot to me and makes the interaction with a dog even more enjoyable. Fluffiness was so much desired that shedding was not a problem in my eyes and I even double-checked that I have no allergy unlike my parents and brother, lucky me. One more thing was the absence of the need to trim a dog that I found an extra duty that I did not want to take in Finland (all service is super expensive here and dogs here are treated as people). After all these factors, I had only one option in my heart – Japanese Akita Inu, yes Hachiko from a legendary movie with Richard Gere in the main role (to be continued).

February 26, 2021 0 comment

PhD as a school of life

In 2014 after graduating from Data Mining and Machine Learning from Aalto University, I was in between academia and industry. At one point, I loved the subject that I studied that time, on the other hand I was offered a position by newly opened Microsoft to do reporting-related job. At that time the position offered seemed attractive to me, but the environment with strict schedule and dress code did not seem the right for me.

What would you choose in this situation?

They say you need to select your PhD topic and research group as you select your partner that is by love and passion to the subject. In my case, I was certain in the subject, though my research group had only few people left. That meant that I needed to find collaborators outside. In fact, the situation was not perfect.

I understood that I need to find a deeper reasoning to convince myself to do either of the steps. It is the same as defining the vector and asking yourself “Why?” to be sure you are going in the right direction.

First, I understood that I need to enjoy the environment where I will be working. Large corporate world did not seem attractive to me that time since it the position was far away from being research oriented and contained pretty well defined direction to go. If that would be Microsoft research that would be completely another story.

Second, for a foreigner despite speaking finnish already, it feels more like home at the international university. I found the meaning of university to be this intermediate step in life that gives you time to integrate into the society by lots of interactions with people and by having the opportunity to take finnish courses. It is hard to imagine how many people one can meet at the large university and people are our best teachers. Besides, there is something special as well about foreign people who are open-minded and were ready to overcome their comfort zone to come abroad.

So during your PhD you can meet really good friends for life that in case you want to integrate into the society it is of crucial important. Friends are the one who make you feel more like at home. Believe me or not, but at the moment I feel already in Finland more than at home. Huge part of this comes from the bonds I established here.

Mökki trip with friends

So I decided to take a PhD as a school of life.

For me it means the following. I choose myself what I put into the meaning behind the PhD. That is very crucial point since it sets your attitude towards the process. For me it was the period of life, when I decided to study deeper the subject I loved. I clearly understood that Professorship is not my path, but being a Professional is my path. Both words have a prefix Pro meaning you take it seriously. I understood that I want to go deeper and that the subject really interests me. This period of life at the same time was the period of integration into the finnish society. For me that meant to continue taking finnish courses with my favorite teacher Seija Koski. It also meant to meet new people and grow as a person. During my PhD studies I even organized Proactives Finland society with Elena O. for the students where we taught a mindfull approach to life.

Proactives Finland “How to find your values seminar”

Next vital and really meaningful part of PhD is to get familiar with global community. One of my wise friends I met at the conference in 2014 in Cyprus while still doing my masters, told me that he tried to go to the best conferences he could from the beginning of his PhD studies.

Cyrpus, IJCAI

In fact, it takes time before you can publish the paper to the best venue, that is why it makes sense to go to the best places even without any publication there. I learned this lesson and thanks to the support of my professor I made it possible to attend the best venues.

I got to know global community and the brightest minds through summer schools. My most favorite one Machine Learning Summer School in Tubingen, 2015. It is hard to get to this school, since they select only 100 people, but I managed to write a good motivation letter and got there. It was amazing time and we still keep in touch with some of the community people there and meet while being at the conferences.

Machine Learning Summer School, 2015

Besides I went to Deep Learning Summer School where I met my good friends D.U. and A.L. whose friendship I appreciate till now. So each year during the summer I selected a different summer school until the last year when I have chosen to attend an ICML instead.

Nobody can deny the difficulties that one has to face with during PhD studies and conference deadlines. However, with time every other paper is a bit easier to write. The research comes deeper with knowledge and the quality increases. However my position was to deny PhD life as the one full of suffering. I have chosen a bit different position as PhD as a school of life.

Taking responsibility for what you have is a key thing that helped me to balance those four years. I have to acknowledge that at some point my research did not go well, since I did not have collaborators to work with. But once I started to work with one researcher, very responsible and clever person, it went well. In fact, there were two influential people Eric and Emil with whom I worked tightly and who drastically have increased my standards.

That is PhD as life can be hard at times…

Besides, I am extremely grateful to have so many trips and travels abroad through these years… Two months in New York spent in NYU while research visit, two months in Moscow in MIPT university with IPavlov project.

New York exchange @ Brooklyn bridge

In Moscow with Deep Pavlov group during cycle trip

Running after the raccoons in Montreal and walking for many hours along the Long Beach in California with a friend. Those moments are not coming by default, but those are created by good planning, hard work, open-minded attitude and yes, a pinch of luck 😉

October 28, 2018 0 comment

What to consider while buying a new apartment in Finland?

An apartment is a cave where we always want to return back. The place where we recharge emotionally and physically by adjusting everything according to our needs. That is why even the most luxurious hotel will never be the one for you, since there is no emotional attachment exists with it.

In Nordics people and housing communities take a really good care of keeping the houses neat. Despite the high repair costs that can end up in 1000 euros per square meter, a 50 year old house can look 30 years younger after renovation. In Finland, it is called “putki-remontti” that means “the renovation of pipes”. This procedure can take several months, but closer to the date of renovation the cost of the apartment drops significantly.

Buying either new or old apartment is less stressful in Nordics where either the broker or housing company takes care of the papers. However, more difficult part is to choose your future apartment. I try to mention several things that I consider to be important while choosing a new apartment.

First, you need to be honest with yourself and understand do you need to choose an apartment for investment purposes (and sell/rent it in the nearest future) or for leaving yourself there. If you decide to buy an apartment for yourself and family, then you prioritize more your own needs. Particularly, you might prioritize what suits your needs (e.g. size and location) and bother less about the attractiveness in terms of location (that is one of the crucial factors while investing). For example, for investment it is better to buy smaller apartments of one/two rooms and with a good transportation. On the other hand, for you it might be more vital to have an additional room for the same price, but located further. While selecting an apartment for living there, you need to select it subjectively and to have an inner “yes” from your heart. In this article I share some tips for those who are considering buying a new apartment in Helsinki area, all the information is based on personal experience and is not supported by any of the construction companies

An important step to do first is to find your favorite construction companies. Some of the companies are larger-scale, like YIT, Skanska, Bonava, WestPro, Peab, SRV others are smaller and family-scale, like Jatke, Lapti, Hausia, Varte, JM. Recently, Bonava started to plan really nice houses and in new areas, like Suurpelto, Espoo and Kuninkaantammi, Helsinki where the prices are more than reasonable. WestPro offers business class apartments with high-quality materials often near the sea with large windows and wooden balconies. YIT has a large share on the market, builds many houses and is originally a finnish company. Among smaller construction companies my favourite is Hausia, a family-owned business by people who worked in large companies and gained enough experience to start their own construction business. What makes them different are good materials and furniture included in the basic price. Yes, finnish apartments usually come with a ready to move in condition with a kitchen and a toilet. That is truly amazing that the only thing you need to do is to bring some furniture and you can enjoy your new flat.

For example, Hausia offers by default a parquet floor, large balconies with wooden walls, Siemens equipment ( it is a highest class of quality), Novart kitchen and wardrobe ( a high-quality kitchen furniture) and free underground parking space.

Hausia balcony

The best windows are offered by T2H, who offer panoramic windows that start almost from the floor. Besides Pallas Rakennus builds a really nice project in Vuosaari with panoramic windows and large balconies as shown below in the picture.

Pallas rakennus Vuosaaren Savel

Thus, every company has its own price segment and the choice of materials that you can get familiar with. Usually with time they keep updating the materials they use. It means one can except for upcoming apartments to have a similar selection. Another company that offers interesting projects with a possibility to buy the land is Peab and SRV. The reason is why you might prefer Peab is because when you have a little bit larger budget you can buy an apartment with owned land (that means you do not need to pay extra fee for renting the land that can be slightly lower than maintaining fee) for a reasonable price. Peab does not have as much housing projects as YIT, but people are very quick with reserving their apartments. Lapti company also sells apartments with owned land and offers a good quality. To conclude, it is really good to know the market and the companies whom you trust building your future apartment.

So once you know the construction companies, you can be ready to follow future houses to be built. If you are subscribed by either an individual future project or the construction company, you can be the first one to reserve the future apartment. Believe me, you can save 10-20K from the apartment cost by reserving the desired apartment during the presales time, “ennakkomarkinointi” in finnish. The saving can come from reserving an apartment located in the lower floors, since the price increases drastically with higher floors. The companies notify presales time and day during which one need to call by phone to reserve the apartment. Believe me, there are lots of people who want to reserve lower floors and one room apartment so make sure you call immediately after the presale starts. Later after reservation you can pay a deposit and make your final decision later. So in case you change you mind, they just return the money back. Presales period usually lasts several months, after which the sale starts.

While you are following future projects, it is good to understand the areas where you would like to live. For new apartments, you need to be flexible since mostly new areas are used for building. For example, in Munkkuniemi there were no new houses built for some time, except recently that Skanska started to build one house there. Explore the areas you are interested, come there and if you want to understand who will be your neighbors, come to the closest shop at a busy time and you can get the picture. Sometimes, the expectation does not meet the reality, like it was for me with Soukka centre in Espoo. The areas that seem attractive to me are Hiekkaharju, Vantaa (close to the centre by train, very calm area), Henttaa, Ymmersta and Suurpelto in Espoo. Those places have a good connection to the center, peaceful and are not yet hyped. Ymmersta is located at the next train station after Kauniainen (the place where one can not afford easily to buy an apartment due to special status of the area) and it takes 20 minutes to reach city center from there. Suurpelto and Henttaa are new areas in Espoo, the atmosphere there is nice and there is a large forest nearby along with a small shopping centre. Besides those regions, Kannelmaki in Helsinki will be more expensive in the future. In Vantaa, there is a high risk of airplane noise that can be checked from here. In Martinlaakso e.g., one can count several planes in a minute that makes it harder to open the windows and enjoy the silence. That is why in Vantaa in general the apartments cost cheaper due to airplane traffic. E.g. in Kuninkantaammi one can see airplanes, but much less than in Martinlaakso. In new area Kivisto, Vantaa it is calm now and one can not see airplanes but there is some passive slowly recognizable noise that I could hear while being there. Wherever you are leaving there will be something to sacrifice, either with more expensive price or the absence of facilities, so that is why it is important to set the right priorities in the first place

I hope this article makes some points more clear to you and make you closer to YOUR apartment.

~ Luiza

October 27, 2018 0 comment

Boasting or sharing your joy?

Joy can be result of our achievements, outside forces or joint effort with other people. While being a kid, this external force is often our family, so struggling to make us happy. They do lots of sacrifices and we as consumers just accept their love and all the material goods they can afford. Kids joy is expressed without any additional preprocessing and filtering, you can see it clearly. I still do not understand why kids even need social networks, since their straightforward way of expression, so common in childhood, allows them to share what they feel. That is why it feels they are so alive, direct and somehow spontaneous.

With young people approaching more conscious and grown-up life much transformation happening. We start to underestimate our achievements, asking from ourselves higher and higher results; perceive many things as granted. While mixed with high criticism, those things even get more sophisticated. Moreover, we afraid to boast about the achievements. For our inner soul, that makes so much for getting what you have now, it is a trauma. Efforts that are not noticed, are not nurtured. So how to support ourselves, how to appreciate small things?

I see the following two steps:

Being thankful for all the joy moments and everything we have now. Noticing these moments and respecting yourself for making those moments happen.
Sharing these moments and your joy with others. Being able to express without any sense of shame, that you had good time or you had a good achievement.

First step is the basis. What you feel inside is what matters. Not to feel any shame for the good times you had, being truly glad for yourselves and others involved.

Second step is being able to share your joy. Without having a feeling, that you boast or exaggerate the situation. It is really easy to make a post in the social network and even some portion of people might envy you, the others might be happy for you or even get motivated! I personally believe, that something that was achieved by you is especially worth sharing. E.g. going to a conference, where you present your work, etc. Sharing good moments with people you love can be also certain gesture of appreciation. One wise women told me that even if only 1 person benefits from the post, it was worth posting it.

The stronger you become mentally, the more you are open to share more with people taking a responsibility of dealing with consequences. Not to share only positive information, but also inconvenient one.

Your voice is what can make dramatic change. In all of its forms. Bloggers share their views with hundreds thousand people every day, so why not to be a bit more open and starting sharing more with a small circle you have, especially with joy

P.S. My turn to share my joy: the featured image is shot that I am personally proud of. It was made while being in Boston for Christmas, 2017. Guys made a performance where they taught people to dance, the crowd of people got an extreme pleasure of watching that got depicted on the shot.

6.05.2018 ~ Luiza

May 6, 2018 0 comment

How I prepared for a Google internship interview?

Late autumn I was asked by Kristina Makarova, a wonderful coach, why don’t I upgrade my skills by doing internships? I understood clearly what stopped me from applying all these years and apparently it was a limiting belief. It sounds like: “If I get that internship at this company, I will lose the opportunity to … “. E.g. an opportunity to catch up with your publications, to miss the whole summer, to be misunderstood by the professor, to lose lots of energy in vain since getting there is hard, everyone has its own answer. As soon as you question those limiting beliefs asking: “Am I 100% sure it works like that, why getting an internship can limit me?”, you are on the way to making yourself free and ready for a new challenge. Probably, for most of the people the limiting belief sounds like: “You? Applying? No way! There are a bunch of people, more skillful than you, be realistic!”.

“People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.”

Donald Knuth

In fact everything depends how early you start to prepare since in one year you can upgrade skills to the level, where the chances of being a googler are pretty high, no matter whom you were a year ago. Hard-work and passion always pay off. In case you are still not convinced, please watch a video made by a student, who was far away from being genius. He shared his inspiring story of getting there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJZCUhxNCv8&t=1s&index=14&list=LL23CqOwHC8KuxMt-xob07Yg.

Next step is about networking and finding the way to contact Google recruiter directly without going through a website application, that can be left without any attention. In Machine Learning or generally in research communities places to meet a recruiter or seniour researchers are well-respected conferences, like NIPS, ICML, etc. and summer schools like Machine Learning Summer or Deep Learning school in Montreal. I met a recruiter at NIPS Women in Machine Learning workshop. Believe me or not, but this WiML workshop was the best place to meet plenty of industry stars during NIPS conference… Still happy about the opportunity of talking to Christopher Bishop, who wrote Machine Learning “Bible” Machine Learning for Pattern Recognition. Believe me, he is one of the kindest and attentive people, I have ever seen. Well, this is a different story…

NIPS 2016 BARCELONA

So I sent CV and within the week of applying I had a phone call with a recruiter. She asked general non-technical questions and mostly spoke herself, explaining the process of the interview. The recruiter gave me materials to prepare for the coding interview, scheduled in one month period. Google recruiters are extremely flexible with respect to coding interview scheduling and let you choose the data and time yourself within some limits!

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code”

Linux Torvalds

Let us switch to the most interesting part: coding interview preparation! A candidate is supposed to code interactively with the recruiter in a google document. By interactive coding I mean coding on the spot, where you can build up your function iteratively while getting useful hints from the interviewer. The whole point of it is to check your coding fluency, the knowledge of basic data structures, like stacks, lists, queues, dictionaries and how they are implemented in your favourite language <3. For Google, opmitization and nicely written code is out of the question. One surprizing fact about the position you apply is that there is only one type of internship position called SOFTWARE ENGINEER. This role in practice can be anything, from pure research to heavy coding, but while being interviewed you are expected to have excellent coding skills combined with algorithm design skills. Up to my knowledge there are two types of problems: to create a class implementing some functionality or to implement a set of functions. Hashs, sets and binary search trees will be one of the mostly used structures.

One of the most helpful advices I got before preparation – do not spend your time trying to solve difficult coding tasks, meant to be for olympiad programming. In practice, a candidate needs to be fluent in solving the tasks similar to those given in Cracking the Coding Interview book (considered to be the classics for preparation) Better to solve the tasks from: https://careercup.com/, as they are the real ones at least! On the other side, if you have plenty of time ahead, you can practice using the following sites:

In addition to algorithmic questions, I went through python related questions, checked this handy complexity cheat sheet: http://bigocheatsheet.com/ and read about the complexity of the most commonly used operations for python specifically! One month is a relatively good amount of part-time preparation, but be better generous to yourself by asking more time to prepare from Google recruiter 😉 Those who speak russian or use actively google translator, should definitely check this website: http://larrr.com/, most of my gratitude goes to a woman-googler who shared a lot useful tips about Google interview process, that made me feel more confident.

Believe me or not, but preparing can be hard even to a researcher! Solving algorithmic tasks requires fresh practice and don’t be sad if the first problem takes you several hours … If you can choose between Python and C, I recommend the first one, since Python is a Google language and your life becomes easier when it comes to a bunch of algorithm implementations. I was pleasantly surprized to see very concise pythonic tree implementations with print, delete and insert being short and not scary 😀

While preparing get some help from the peer’s who already went through the interview and organize mock interviews Your friend will act as an interviewer giving your hints on the way and getting some useful feedback to you. Quite important to find a person familiar with the process, being able to help if you are stuck and to assess critically your performance. Mock-interview is a vital step in your preparation, by having those, you significantly increase your chances !!!

Personally, I was given relatively easy problems related to implementing a class with a certain functionality, sorting and probability distribution related tasks. The challenging part was to take into account corner cases, optimize my code, reason about the requirements, etc. Interviewers prefer assessing your skills using simpler tasks. They see how you reason, go deeper, take into account resources and see more than one solution on the toy problem. It is not something a personc can output on the spot, it is purely the result of good preparation or strong background

Overall, I had 3 coding interviews, 45 minutes each (usually there are only two!). Interviewers were extremely helpful. I am telling you, everyone has a chance to apply to Google, given enough dedication and willingness to study. Although I did not get there this time, my first two interviews went well in my opinion. In the end I got an enormous practice, refreshed in my memory some vital topics and let the fear of applying to any big company go away. Of course, there were a moment of frustration, since my preparation has started before the new year and even on the 31st I spend a bit of time to study I needed to make lots of compromises choosing between seing people, doing sports, etc and this preparation. In such periods of time, I try to keep the balance, allowing pleasant moments to happen in my life as well.

So dare to apply and if you want the continuation of this post, please write your question in the comment below!

Luiza <3

To summarize, here is your action plan:

Step 1: Rethink your limiting beliefs that govern your decision about the internship. The decision should depend on your values, priorities but not on your fears of being not good enough, etc.
Step 2: Find the way to apply to Google through a recruiter or through googlers that you can meet at respected conferences or summer schools. Meanwhile start searching for a person to give you a reference, Google asks that after the first talk to a recruiter. You can mention in the form the team and location preferences.
Step 3: Send carefully prepared CV to a recruiter and have a scheduled call withing 1-2 weeks. Agree on the date of the next coding interview, please take enough time for preparation.
Step 4: Find a mock-interview assistant who acts as an interviewer. It is vital to find a person familiar with the process, being able to help if you are stuck.
Step 5: Go through “Cracking the code interview book” and other mentioned materials and arrange several mock-interviews, the more the better for you!
Step 6: Make the best during the interview and wait patiently for a couple of weeks until you get a verdict

March 2, 2017 0 comment

Insights and lessons of 2016

Short post about the main lessons, that I learned during this long and amazing year. The concept of insight means something that stroke your mind at some point, may be an idea that you used to know, but totally forgot in the totally busy schedule of the life. Not to forget the diamond thoughts, this year I bought a small notebook, where I tend to write a couple of lines to keep the most amazing things in memory. Believe me or not, but this is the only way to reuse your insights later, to share them or to use them to write a book in the future! What I really like about the insights, as they are personal – adjusted for you, short – several sentences not to make that a burden, striking and amazingly powerful. Most of my insights were born during the communication with people. People have much to say, and some of their ideas are diamonds that you have to notice. So here are my diamond-insights:

Clarity in our mind is the result of hard work of answering unsolved questions. Unless you dont resolve what are your values, your ethics, your preferences in life you will be blown much by the winds of people, who know what they want. That is why it is worth asking yourself and discussing with other people your picture of the world and to establish the most vital rules of your life. Rules created by you! It is very exciting journey to make that list of rules, that you do your best to follow. No country would ever survive without the set of laws, the same applies to our individual life. Rules can express as well the things that you will not ever do in your life: “hit the child”.
We can not learn from people, unless we are tuned to hear something good from them. That is why many people listen so attentively the speech of famous and successful people and pay much less attention to the others. Not fair, is not it. It means that we decide in advance the level up to which we perceive the information: weather we are ready to be engaged fully in the conversation or not. I tend to remember those diamond thoughts from people around me, knowing that everyone has something to say very precious, you just have to wait a bit.
Emotional intellect can only be the result of communication with people. If you want to be more comfortable with people, get to know new people. After knowing thousands of people, you better understand what to expect from the 1001, as we tend to be similar, be slightly groupped according to our values. Emotional intellect is the ability to interpret the notice what is happening inside and outside with other people and to interpret that correctly.
Systems where people are united by the common interest and bring support is the best way to grow. Being involved in the community with similar interests can increase your speed significantly, even if you think you can not proceed anymore. It is called pushing the limits. This year Galiya Berdnikova business-woman community “ZBU” has given me a lot of inspiration and tools to grow. Galiya is the perfect example of the woman who can make things clear in her mind and business. I really recommend you to check her russian blog http://womenbz.ru/.
The last thing to do is to start accusing people in case of things going wrong. In most of the cases they are doing the best they can and your task is to help them help you by listening of their version and situation explanations. We are expecting much and sometimes are not ready to hear the rules and conditions of real business. I am using this rule on a regular basis and almost never get angry when the things are not going in the way, I expected. I have to confess that in the beginning of January after laser eye operation, I was very nervous not to get the desired results and expressed my unsatisfaction to the doctors of the clinic. In half of the year, the doctors turned out to be right and my vision has stabilized.
Judgements of other people is mostly the result of your childhood traumas. We see in other people, that we see in ourselves. E.g., I can notice people being busy, as at times I can be busy myself. The word busy can be replaced by any other characteristics, like “selfish”, “rude”, etc. So your judgements of other people can show you what are the things to work with and what you dont really accept yourself.
Group all the work, that is similar. This year, I had a trouble with 2 projects and was trying to reserve couple of hours per each during the day. This did not work for me, as getting into the process as well takes time. Later I have changed the strategy towards doing 1 project for several days and noticed a tremendous results, as I had actually time to go deeper and to make a progress. The same applies to replying messages, email. In addition, I started to do hackatons with my students where couple of days they have dedicated only to my project and the results were much more prominent and visible.
Walking before the sleep for 1 hour was the best practice I could imagine. During this 1 hour I could remember and reflect on the things happened, the things to consider on the fresh air. My skin was super happy, my body and my mind was cleaned during this 1 hour of reflection to be ready to sleep. More here in this article: http://muzaluiza.ru/making-commitments-as-a-way-to-introduce-a-habit/
Deepest and nicest relations require mutual giving from both sides. It is all that simple if both people are mature. Just be ready to give as much as you can, but dont try to require much. You all know that situation when the wife can ask “Do you love me?” 10 times per day, but that seems like pulling the love out of the husband, rather than giving what you can. We can not get much more than we give, so dont be surprised by the shortage of love, just make a first step yourself. “Buddha and Love” by Ole Nedal (http://buddhaandlove.com/) was my favourite book about relationships this year, very deep and budhist approach is really deeply caring.
We can break promises given to ourselves, but much more difficult to break promises given to others, especially whom we respect. I gave a couple of promises this year to my dearest friends to introduce new habits and I could introduce my walking routine and improve eating habits. Losing weight by 5 kilos up to 55 did not work for me for 3 years until I gave a promise.
Most of the people dont need advices, they need listening and us telling nice stories, joking and smiling. Relaxation is number one in the modern world. By listening and keeping our advices silent, we can heal people, told Thich Nhat Hanh to Opra : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyUxYflkhzo
Simplify all the routines, that can be done without much of your thinking. This way you can give the space to something more meaningful. My morning routine consists of simple meals, shopping usually takes place once per week. I never spend more than 1 hour on cleaning as prefer to keep my room clean by default. May be checking out the clothes takes more time, but I combine that with educational videos on the background.
One person can be wrong. Three people are less probable to be wrong at the same time. Be ready to share and explain your situation, ask advice from people, who succeded, and this way you can be much more steady in life and avoid bad cases. Being able to discuss your case with other appropriate people is a blessing and together you can always go further than alone. Check the concept of MasterMinds here http://www.thesuccessalliance.com/what-is-a-mastermind-group/.
Introduce a practice of writing down your short insights and you will have an opportunity to go back and retrive your learned wisdom whenever you want.

What are your insights this year?

With respect,

Luiza <3

December 30, 2016 0 comment

Evening walk a habit of successful people

Why evening walk is a great routine?

After holding the seminar Morning Routine, I took my friend’s hand and told him: ‘Can you promise me to start using one thing from our seminar?’ As I deeply appreciate Sayantan, I wanted him to take some benefit from it.

‘For the next 2 weeks I will wake up in the morning, drink a glass of water and do a small set of exercises,’ said Sayantan, smiling, but not truly understanding what he committed for.

At the same time, I felt weird not promising something in return, so I promised in my turn to make a 40 minute walk before going to bed every day. Why it was specifically a 40 minute walk, I can not remember now :/

First day Santa was really excited to wake up at 5.00 a.m., but an hour later he fell back asleep and came to work only at 10 a.m. Nevertheless, I supported and encouraged him to continue, but instead suggested that he shift waking-up time more gradually The following few days some things did not work out for him , but he managed to make a permanent habit of drinking a glass of water with lemon juice and doing stretching exercises.

More importantly, the promise I gave him affected me even more. It was a spontaneuous decision to walk before going to bed. At present I consider that to be one of the most powerful routines. Two weeks turned into a continuous routine that is replaced occasionally with other activities related to sport or seeing people dear to my heart .

First of all, a brisk one-hour walk outdoors in the fresh air gives you the time to plan the next day and to reflect on the ending day. Being thankful for the day you had is a really something to treasure. I believe that every day we have should be celebrated in the evening. Remembering hard work we did, people we helped, emotions we felt, goals we achieved brings an extremely pleasant feeling that your life is good!

Of course, not all the days are sunny. Still there is always something to be thankful for. Furthermore, the place where I walk inspires me: the bay area in Keilaniemi, Espoo, is the residence of hundreds of companies, including Microsoft. They even have their own helicopter pad, near the shore of the Baltic sea that is usually my furthest destination to reach.

Secondly, walking builds up your body, is gentler on the knees compared to running and makes the skin breathe! No cream will make your skin white and your cheeks pink like walking does! People spending time outside in the fresh air tend to have a better skin. In addition, due to walking I lost several kilos that were hard to lose! That was a great reward.

Thirdly, I spend this sleepy time before going to bed in the nicest way I could imagine. Computer as an alternative does not give much benefit at this time, when you only have the energy to browse passively. Evening time is time for socializing and at times I meet my closest friends that make me forget about all the routines..

My clever friend Sergio found another reason for walking. He told me that walking gives time for slow and calm processing of one’s emotions and thoughts that have accumulated over the day. Indeed, during the day lots of thoughts are accumulated and one of the biggest reasons for not being able to sleep is having the continuous endless flow of thoughts. Some people read before going to bed. Some drink warm milk. Some meditate. All these are the ways to bring your mind to a quiet mode ready to sleep. Quietness comes after ordering your thoughts, letting some of them go. It can not be done just by lying on the bed before going to sleep. What would be your way of ending the day: walking, meditating, conversations with the dearest, a sauna, a book is up to you and the circumstances.

October 16, 2016 4 comments

Vulnerability and building deeper relationships

People intrinsically try to follow high expectations set by the society and show a better image of themselves. In such an environment showing your strengths is considered to be an advantage, and that is a reason why people might respect and love you. In theory.

In practice, while trying to look perfect we loose the opportunity to grow, to learn and to receive a tremendous feedback from people around. Ask yourself: will anyone give you a hand without you telling about the problem openly? Of course, no.

Secondly, it is much more difficult to build close relations without being vulnerable and sharing openly yourself. Vulnerability implies the opportunity of being hurt by opening and this concept was studied in detail by Brene Brown: http://brenebrown.com/. For people with their hesitations, problems, sad moments occuring sometimes it is easier to connect with the others. Because we all share some difficult moments, hearing someone having the same experience echoes in our hearts: “Exactly, I had the same feeling, how can I understand you!”.

Being vulnerable is unsecure and I have to admit, we should select to whom we open. Brene Brown suggests to choose those people, who will not fall into depression with you, but rather can empathize. Empathizing means the acceptance in all its meanings, accepting everything as it is without strict judgement. I would not share my weekness with the one, who starts to judge me saying, “I told you, you should have done it differently”.

My life has become much more harmonic, when I increased sharing my difficulties with people around. I feel myself more authentic and real, not spending the energy for keeping those akward memories only inside of my head. Only now I realize, why some people considered me not to be open enough and why it was difficult to make a deeper connection at times. Still, despite of mentioning weeknesses, I stick to the prevalence of positive attitude and readiness to make the actions, as this is the only way to proceed and fulfil your life full of meaning…

September 1, 2016 0 comment

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