Hi, I am Olga...

In 2005 I will be turning 30.

This age is commonly perceived as the best half of an active life and lots of men tend to evaluate what they had achieved by this age in terms of career success. For a woman, being a mom and a wife might become a priority or task number one to be accomplished by this age. Well, you can say, it is terrible stereotyping, which worsens by cultural «Slavic», not North American perception, where women did not have the same opportunity in career advancement. But this is a reality I lived in and according to this stereotyping perception I did achieve my task number one by the age of 20 when I got married and by 22 when I gave birth to our child.

In reality we all have our own indicators of success regardless of gender, age or ethnical background. I am trying to recollect if I was making any promises to myself, you know, when you promise yourself — ‘by this time I will be doing this or that, or I will became so and so«, and actually I remember myself at the age of 8 or so, dreaming of becoming a princess and getting married to a prince; my career options varied from becoming a ballerina or an actress to an astronaut or a politician.