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Would be interesting to hear your story. It sounds like a very good description, this "voluntary but compulsory". Would you mind to share more?

I also see it as an attempt to put pressure on me, but I know, that there are people who truly like it. So would be interesting to understand their point of view.

So you could concentrate and think despite that there is another person sitting next to you and waiting when you say something?

This part remains me too much of an interview: somebody sitting next to you and waits in the real time when you say something. It is too much pressure for me, somehow.

Wow! I love your comment! That's exactly what I think to myself. It is so stupid to suppress such a powerful source of energy for changing something in your head or/and in your life.

There is a nice norwegian documentary about, that we are kind of brainwashed that genders are equal, and that the reason for underrepresentation is nurture, but in the movie they hint at different studies, that it is not solely nurture, these is really a lot in our genes too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E577jhf25t4 (it has english subs)

Or just check this part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E577jhf25t4&feature=youtu.be... if you don't want to watch the whole ~40min documentary

"If I have told you these details about the asteroid, and made a note of its number for you, it is on account of the grown-ups and their ways. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him."

from The Little Prince

Your mention about questions that could be answered with numbers just reminded me on this passage from the book. : ) Apparently Saint-Exupéry made the same observation, that people find it easier to answer to number questions.

I would look at the problem differently. I think this approach when you try to accept that you are "broken" or "ill" does not really help or motivate. I would consider myself, my brain, my subconsciousness as a one whole and try to interpret the signs it gives me. Like if you are bored by a project, that does not mean that you are a bad person who has problems with concentration or something. It might mean that it is not complex enough for you.

There is this theory that says that for every IQ level you have to find an appropriate occupation. If the occupation does not require the whole your potential, you feel bored. If it requires higher abstract capacities than you have, you feel overwhelmed. So the thing is to find your level.

On my previous job I switched projects every 6 months. At the beginning they all sounded so exciting, I didn't know anything about things that I would have to do on them, so I was so eager to start them and learn all the stuff. But after 3-4 months they were so boring, I was struggling so much and then I always inevitably landed in my boss office telling him that I cannot stand it anymore and I have to switch the project otherwise I have to leave the company. But the thing is this subconscious urge to do something different is much stronger than rational thoughts. I can fight for some time with myself and then I give up.

But then I decided to switch the whole industry where I was working. And now I am incredibly happy with that switch. Now I am on the same project for 8 months and it is nowhere any sings that I wanna jump to the next thing. It is very different here and the tasks I have, they require really whole my mental capacities leaving no place for boredom.

So what I wanted to say is that IT project != IT project. You can use the same programming language to build something that is not that complex in its nature and it will make you bored, or you can use it to solve a very complex problem and then you don't need to satisfy your thirst with new technology because the project itself is already demanding whole your mental abstract capacities.

So what I would do in your place, is that I would try to find an industry which is not only using new shiny tools but also builds something extremely complex. You have to find a complexity level appropriate for your. So take something that you think you are not capable of (something with complex math or physics or whatever) and see whether you can deal with that.

Oh, I like you mentioned that. It reminded me of a quote I'd read recently and which I'd liked. Here it is:

"For me, the hardest thing about functioning in a foreign language was not the long hours it took me to get through a text, not the heightened anxiety, accompanying every social interaction, but the sense of reduced personality that comes with limited verbal expression. For someone who prided herself on writing music criticism for one of the largest Russian newspapers Vedomosti, a branch of The Financial Times, this was a bitter pill to swallow. Even though I communicated perfectly fine, I missed being able to say more with less, to say the same thing in several ways, to express character, not only literal sense. What came out of my mouth felt crude, stiff, and trite."

(from http://www.rma.ac.uk/students/?p=2646)

It is so true for me, this thing about reduced personality.

This is an interesting view on russian discussion culture. How did you come to this conclusion?

Thanks for writing this. I liked how you described these feelings about coming back.

> It's strange how much a shared perspective on life seems to matter regards to enjoying your relationships with others.

That's my permanent state as being an xpat.

I don't like to travel in the sence what is usually meant by it. For me it is also just exhausting and similar to what the OP said. But I like to live somewhere else. You learn to see the world and people differently. Though you have to learn how to not feel lonely because of the fact that you are different and have special feelings and thoughts. You need to learn filtering people in order to find those with whom you have something in common. So the problem is not that you cannot approach new people, but that most of them are just of no interest for you.

Location: Germany

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: C++, Python

Résumé/CV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/igmnv9otcyonjmq/shubina_cv_no_pers...

Email: daria.shubina at gmail.com

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I did my PhD in physics, where I developed software for data processing and analysis, then I developed software in automobile industry for control of mechanical systems, now I am interested in algorithms and looking for a job as C++ or Python developer.