About Me

Hi, my name is Alex Polivka and the point of this blog is to share my thoughts on life so that maybe you might read a perspective you may not have considered before.  I’m sure this is probably the 653, 289, 432^nd blog ever posted on the internet, but that just means there’s 653,289,431 ideas out there that I haven’t gotten to consider yet and I apologize for taking up this portion of the internets.

The basics about me are:  I’m the oldest of five children.  I’m from Cincinnati, Ohio.  I graduated from the Ohio State University in May of 2013 with a BA in International Studies and two minors in Russian and Economics.  I am happy to say I am employed in a job that doesn’t have me smelling like food all the time.  Running makes me feel good.  When it comes to politics, I vote for candidates whose policies and backgrounds are ones I’ve researched and can relate to.  When it comes to religion, I was raised Roman Catholic and consider religion to be a good influence for a lot of people.  When it comes to my orientation, ethnicity, and gender, I am a straight, white, incredibly handsome male.  My main goal in life is to have a family that makes me as happy as my family was growing up.  That may sound extremely cheesy and too weird to hear a college-aged kid saying, but I know that’s what will make me happiest one day.

The Irish Soup part of my title hopefully isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds.  My parents created their email account under that name years ago because my mom is Irish and our family name (Polivka) apparently translates to soup in Czech.  We have an old Czechoslovakian soup bowl lying around our house somewhere to prove it.  I also really liked reading the Chicken Soup for the Kids’ Soul stories when I was growing up, so this is my little dedication to that influence on my childhood.  I am also not that creative as evidenced by the fact that I just mirrored this idea from two different sources so please bear with me.

I decided to put myself on the internet in this capacity because it’s 2013 and I can.  I don’t mean for that to seem arrogant or bullheaded or something; I recently came to the conclusion that people with ideas and thoughts can make a difference (weird, I know) and that it is so easy to share those ideas and thoughts in this day and age.  My voice matters just like the voice of each and every single other person on this planet, so why not put myself out there and see what comes of it?  I also think I communicate my real feelings better through writing than through speaking so I don't think I'll be too awful at this.

I created this blog back in the summer of 2011 for a study abroad trip to Russia I went on.  Feel free to read through the old articles if you are at all interested in learning a little bit about life in Russia’s two largest cities and learning about my numerous culture mishaps.  Russia is an amazing country and it is really worth traveling to or studying if you have the opportunity.

Being completely honest with you, I do hope that what I write on here does leave a small imprint on you.  I really think it’s hard in today’s world to take into account other people’s opinions and feelings with the fast-paced, constant updates that technology provides us with.  My parents taught me to put myself in other people’s shoes and what I write on here is an accumulation of thoughts stemming from my observations of the world we live in.  You can agree with me.  You can disagree with me.  You can be annoyed at everything I’m writing.  You can let me know if something really resonates with you.  At the end of the day, this is just me trying to see if my thoughts are all that different from the rest of the world, but I wouldn’t mind it being a little more than that.  

 

Enjoy, and if there is ever a topic you want me to write about, don’t hesitate to tell me to write about it!  I don’t mind receiving free suggestions when my mind is already struggling to be creative.