July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Young friend has fondness for Legos
Back in the Saddle
Svetlana may want to kill us.
I first met Svetlana back in 2002 in a pizza joint in the basement of a cruddy building in Kyrgyzstan. She was heading up the journalism program at the American University of Central Asia, located in Bishkek, at that time.
She also had recently become a mother. Her son, Ilia, was only about six months old when we first met. Svetlana, who was unmarried and who protected the name of Ilia's father as if it were a state secret, brought the boy along for that first meeting.
And I fell for the kid.
Sometimes that happens, adults bond with kids as if they are instantly unofficial nephews or nieces or god-children.
That happened, I admit, when I first met Svetlana and Ilia.
George Krimsky had brought us together. George, a former AP foreign correspondent, was running the show for an International Center for Journalists project in Central Asia.
Chris Wren, just retired from The New York Times, and I were doing the training sessions; but George was running the show.
We depended upon him to know who we could trust and who we could not.
Svetlana Kulikova, he assured us, we could trust.
So we had pizza and beer together in that basement restaurant, and I played peek-a-boo with Ilia and bounced him on my knee, and a relationship was born.
It advanced in fits and starts.
Chris and I did training at the university that spring. I returned a year later to lecture at the university and do another round of training in Bishkek.
Again, we got together at the pizza place in the basement. And, again, Ilia reeled Uncle Jack in easily with his charms.
But all was not well at Svetlana's university. She had earned her master's degree in the U.S. as a Muskie Scholar, and she dreamed of earning her doctorate in the U.S. and paying for it on her own nickel.
It seemed at first to be a fantasy.
But she did it.
With scholarships and teaching fellowships and a little help from her friends now and then when there were cash flow problems, Svetlana was not only able to continue her graduate studies in the U.S.
She was able to complete her doctorate at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, bringing Ilia with her to the States for much of the process.
It wasn't easy. There were hassles with money, with academia, with travel, and with immigration.
But Svetlana is familiar with adversity.
About mid-way through her doctoral program, she delivered a paper at a conference at Indiana University. I drove down and brought her back home for a Jay County weekend so she could meet Connie and share pictures of Ilia. The stories she told on the ride back from Bloomington were humbling; we don't really know what adversity is.
A couple of years ago, the doctorate came through. Svetlana had successfully defended her dissertation.
A few weeks after we heard the news via e-mail, a package arrived in our mailbox. It was a framed certificate. Not a PhD but a PhT, for "Putting Her Through." Our names were on the certificate, and both Svetlana and Ilia had signed it.
But the journey wasn't over.
Having earned her degree, Svetlana had to leave. Those were the rules.
She had to return to the former Soviet Union while she applied for university jobs in the U.S. Ilia, meanwhile, had bounced back and forth between his mother and his grandmother. Things were getting a little stressful, to say the least.
It's not easy to apply for university jobs in the U.S. when you live halfway around the world. It makes no difference that your language skills and background give you an edge; it's hard to put your resume in the right hands.
But we got it done. (There was no point in earning a "PhT" if we couldn't help with the job search.)
Today, Svetlana's teaching journalism at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She's particularly strong with international students, and she's one tough cookie.
As to Ilia, he's in metropolitan Atlanta too, living with his mother and becoming a very, very American kid.
We learned a few years ago that he loves Lego, and a couple of boxes greeted him on his arrival in America.
But now we'll see how much his mother loves Lego. A Lego advent calendar is on its way to Ilia from Uncle Jack and Aunt Connie this week.
According to the box, it has 257 pieces.
If you've ever stepped on a Lego barefoot, you know that's a lot of pieces.
Svetlana may want to kill us.[[In-content Ad]]
I first met Svetlana back in 2002 in a pizza joint in the basement of a cruddy building in Kyrgyzstan. She was heading up the journalism program at the American University of Central Asia, located in Bishkek, at that time.
She also had recently become a mother. Her son, Ilia, was only about six months old when we first met. Svetlana, who was unmarried and who protected the name of Ilia's father as if it were a state secret, brought the boy along for that first meeting.
And I fell for the kid.
Sometimes that happens, adults bond with kids as if they are instantly unofficial nephews or nieces or god-children.
That happened, I admit, when I first met Svetlana and Ilia.
George Krimsky had brought us together. George, a former AP foreign correspondent, was running the show for an International Center for Journalists project in Central Asia.
Chris Wren, just retired from The New York Times, and I were doing the training sessions; but George was running the show.
We depended upon him to know who we could trust and who we could not.
Svetlana Kulikova, he assured us, we could trust.
So we had pizza and beer together in that basement restaurant, and I played peek-a-boo with Ilia and bounced him on my knee, and a relationship was born.
It advanced in fits and starts.
Chris and I did training at the university that spring. I returned a year later to lecture at the university and do another round of training in Bishkek.
Again, we got together at the pizza place in the basement. And, again, Ilia reeled Uncle Jack in easily with his charms.
But all was not well at Svetlana's university. She had earned her master's degree in the U.S. as a Muskie Scholar, and she dreamed of earning her doctorate in the U.S. and paying for it on her own nickel.
It seemed at first to be a fantasy.
But she did it.
With scholarships and teaching fellowships and a little help from her friends now and then when there were cash flow problems, Svetlana was not only able to continue her graduate studies in the U.S.
She was able to complete her doctorate at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, bringing Ilia with her to the States for much of the process.
It wasn't easy. There were hassles with money, with academia, with travel, and with immigration.
But Svetlana is familiar with adversity.
About mid-way through her doctoral program, she delivered a paper at a conference at Indiana University. I drove down and brought her back home for a Jay County weekend so she could meet Connie and share pictures of Ilia. The stories she told on the ride back from Bloomington were humbling; we don't really know what adversity is.
A couple of years ago, the doctorate came through. Svetlana had successfully defended her dissertation.
A few weeks after we heard the news via e-mail, a package arrived in our mailbox. It was a framed certificate. Not a PhD but a PhT, for "Putting Her Through." Our names were on the certificate, and both Svetlana and Ilia had signed it.
But the journey wasn't over.
Having earned her degree, Svetlana had to leave. Those were the rules.
She had to return to the former Soviet Union while she applied for university jobs in the U.S. Ilia, meanwhile, had bounced back and forth between his mother and his grandmother. Things were getting a little stressful, to say the least.
It's not easy to apply for university jobs in the U.S. when you live halfway around the world. It makes no difference that your language skills and background give you an edge; it's hard to put your resume in the right hands.
But we got it done. (There was no point in earning a "PhT" if we couldn't help with the job search.)
Today, Svetlana's teaching journalism at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She's particularly strong with international students, and she's one tough cookie.
As to Ilia, he's in metropolitan Atlanta too, living with his mother and becoming a very, very American kid.
We learned a few years ago that he loves Lego, and a couple of boxes greeted him on his arrival in America.
But now we'll see how much his mother loves Lego. A Lego advent calendar is on its way to Ilia from Uncle Jack and Aunt Connie this week.
According to the box, it has 257 pieces.
If you've ever stepped on a Lego barefoot, you know that's a lot of pieces.
Svetlana may want to kill us.[[In-content Ad]]
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