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 |  Subject: Ukraine // Yekaterina Braginskaya  Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:51 am | |
| Human Name: Yekaterina Braginskaya Country Name: Ukraine Personality: First Impression. Should anyone ask those who have only just recently met Yekaterina, the first trait she possesses that they will hear about is her friendliness. Yekaterina has never met a stranger she does not like, and is warm and friendly to everyone who crosses her path regardless of their age, gender, or nationality. This friendliness makes her great for conversation, because she’s quick to engage in social situations, open to new interactions, and happy to meet or befriend new people.
When she talks with someone, Yekaterina often makes them feel as though all of her attention is on them. She keeps her eyes on their face—not the chest, gentleman, which means you should be kind and return to courtesy—and nods or makes sounds of understanding to indicate she is paying attention. Some say she gets an attentive little tilt to her head while she is listening to someone, almost as though she is considering their words and considering her own response to them.
Yekaterina adapts to serious subjects of conversation more readily and with greater ease than strange or otherwise silly subjects, a trait of hers that anyone can notice just by observation. Should someone approach her with a concern or problem that requires some sort of advice, she is quick to step up to the plate and offer her assistance in what ways she can. However, anyone approaching with a joke or a silly scheme they hope to drag her in is met with a confusion that persists until she figures out what is going on.
In this way, Yekaterina can make a fairly poor first impression despite her friendly personality. People find her inability to keep up with the more fun, sillier subjects of life to be frustrating. Some may even think her too serious as a result, and a small number have even gone so far as to say she is dense because she seems to have a hard time distinguishing between a person’s serious moments and their playful moments. For instance, when observing witty, sometimes biting, banter between two people, she will never know if she is to step in or simply let them continue.
Despite the friendly, if not somewhat serious, demeanor Yekaterina seems to her, she only worsens the impact she leaves on those she is meeting for the first time with her tendency to cry. If someone says something touching or heartbreaking, she will start to tear up and grab them for a hug. Recalling something unpleasant can have the same effect, and while Yekaterina will not grab the nearest person for a hug in that case she will still begin to sniffle and try to fight back tears.
For as simple as Yekaterina’s first impression may be, however, there lurks behind the face she presents to the world a complex woman. She is not just the kind-hearted, big sister type who cries too much and has a hard time distinguishing the jokes from the legitimate comments. Yekaterina is so much more than that; she has those moments when she feels small and unforgiving, she doesn’t always relish in the responsibility she has taken on, and while she does shed tears, she is by no means weak.
Beneath the Surface: The Good Points. Anyone who worries that Yekaterina’s friendliness is superficial or done simply for the sake of appearing in a positive light can put those concerns at ease. She truly is a kind-hearted, warm person with a good nature, and it is those traits of her that seem to draw others around her. Although coming across as socially awkward at times, when Yekaterina does make a connection with someone it is a strong, unwavering bond that can only be snapped if the other person wills it.
Let no one say Yekaterina is not loyal. Her devotion to those she loves, the time and care she puts into everything she does for them, it cannot be denied. If anyone has showed her kindness, she is loathe to allow their reputation to be sullied in her presence. She will point out the good points she has seen in them, espouse to anyone willing to listen all of the kind things they have done or the strengths they have displayed. Yekaterina just doesn’t like to put others down, nor does she like to hear others do the same.
There are some who will argue that Yekaterina is naïve. Her preference for seeing the best in people and focusing on the positives, both in others and in life, make her seem overly optimistic at best and hopelessly idealistic at worst. In some ways, both would be a correct assumption about her character. Yekaterina is optimistic and she can be idealistic. However, just because she focuses on things that are more good in her mind does not mean she is oblivious to those things that are bad.
If anything, Yekaterina is overly sensitive to the bad things in life. She is fully aware of how things can go wrong or how someone is flawed, and she tries to approach each situation appropriately. If someone—her brother, especially—has a bad temper, she will do her best to make sure she and others do not set it off. Should she be thrust in a situation, she tries not to take unnecessary risks. Doing so does put an extra weight of responsibility on her shoulders, for Yekaterina is prone to worrying, but life seems to go smoother because of it.
There are times, however, when no amount of planning or preparation seems to do any good, times when life hits Yekaterina hard and fast. In those instances, she rises to the occasion and makes the best of the situation she is given. Yes, she may cry or bemoan things for a little while, but she is not one to be kept down for long. She will push up her sleeves, assess the situation, and start taking the necessary measures to turn things around. In this way, Yekaterina is a survivor through and through.
She is also a hard worker. The idea of getting her hands dirty, so to speak, or doing a little physical labor is not one that makes her hesitate. In fact, knowing that a situation requires such a thing will likely make it more appealing to her. There is just a certain satisfaction Yekaterina gets from knowing that she has put all of her effort into something, a certain delight that comes from sitting home at the end of the day and aching down to the bone because she spent all day working in the garden.
Yekaterina isn’t the type of person who can just sit around idly. She always has to be doing something—not because she has too much energy, but because she finds a simple sort of comfort in passing the time with a laborious task. In this way, Yekaterina can be dedicated. Even when sick, if there are things to be done she will step up and do them, and rest only when the day has ended and all of her tasks for the day have been completed. Interestingly enough, should anyone else try the same she will be the first one to scold them for being so careless with their health.
Perhaps the one trait that stands out about Yekaterina is that motherliness. Whether a person is someone she has only recently met or someone near and dear to her heart, Yekaterina is prone to fussing over them like they are her one of her children. She actually has a small, nervous habit where she will straighten a person’s hat or their scarf or their shirt when talking to them, partly because she is no less prone to anxiety in a conversation than anyone else and partly because her hands do not like to stay idle for long.
As her motherly qualities would imply, Yekaterina’s greatest strength and the thing she hold closest to her heart is her family. To her, her brother and her sister are the most precious things in the world. She would fight for them, she would die for them, she would give up everything she owned for their sake—her siblings truly are Yekaterina’s greatest asset. Being with them, doing things for them, can allow Yekaterina to go beyond her normal restraints, and where once stood a warm-hearted and gentle woman stands a fierce protector willing to fight tooth and nail.
Thus, to anyone who dares to think Yekaterina is weak, think again. Although by no means as openly strong as her sister, Yekaterina nurses inside of her a strong and powerful woman with an unshakeable determination to see things through and keep those she holds dear to her safe. For all that she can be a powerful ally she can also be a powerful foe, and while Yekaterina will not punish anyone who crosses her she will not hesitate to smack down anyone who dares to stand between her and her family.
Beneath the Surface: The Bad Points. Just as Yekaterina comes across as motherly, she also comes across as somewhat overbearing or smothering. She has a bad tendency to take care of people even when they don’t want it, and what she sees as a gentle correction can override a person’s natural desire to learn through their own mistakes or figure it out on their own. Her tendency to fret over people when they are ill or give hint to something not being right can not only be annoying but also somewhat stifling.
When it comes down to it, Yekaterina needs other people to need her and finds a validation for her existence through how useful she is to those around her. Without someone to dote on or fuss over, she feels lost and can begin to grow discontent with her life. In that discontentment, she will reach out to others—anyone, really, who she can latch onto or who is willing to put up with her need to take care of them. Yekaterina cannot, when it comes down to it, function as a solitary creature. She needs to be with people, needs to love and be loved.
Of course, such a trait can open up dangerous possibilities. One of Yekaterina’s greatest weakness is her too trusting nature. Quick to believe the best in people and sometimes burdened by a poor judgment of their true character, she can easily find herself attached to others who are far too eager to abuse her trust of them. This, coupled with her generous nature, opens her up to the chance of being used for everything she’s worth, and while that may not be a lot there are some who will take what little she does have.
Yekaterina’s trust of others can also lead her to being easily misled by them. She doesn’t always examine their words as anything more than what they appear to be; while perceptive to when a person is hiding some sort of emotion or worry, she is less perceptive to when a person is hiding ulterior motives. Thus, Yekaterina can get into a lot of trouble very fast, and then she must scramble to pick up the pieces and right the situation before she or anyone else gets hurt more.
Some will point out if Yekaterina was simply more assertive, she wouldn’t have such a problem. Easy prey for something as simple as a pleading face or something as manipulative as emotional blackmail, Yekaterina can oftentimes falter and fail when it comes to asserting herself or her opinion. This means that there are times when her voice can be ignored or her thoughts overlooked, and rather than point these times out and take a stand Yekaterina will simply accept the situation for what it is so long as it doesn’t hurt her loved ones.
Perhaps this tendency of hers to not assert herself stems from her lack of self-confidence. Though Yekaterina carries herself as a woman without any doubt in what she says, she does harbor those doubts. A lot of them, in fact. She doesn’t always trust her own choices and once she has carried out with them, she can easily begin to doubt the rightness of her choices. Yekaterina can start off absolutely certain of her decision but, as soon as things appear as though they will go wrong, she will immediately begin to question that decision.
When it comes down to it, Yekaterina just hates to take unnecessary risks. She will do so, of course, if the situation warrants it or if she can convince herself that the risks are worth the possible outcome, but in most cases she prefers to err on the side of caution. It seems hypocritical, of course, of the woman who will be one of the first ones to say that nothing is worth having without a little bit of risk, but Yekaterina can oftentimes be seen as someone whose words are to be followed, not her example.
One could argue that perhaps one of Yekaterina’s most crippling flaws is her sensitivity. Some people call her overly emotional, while others outright label her a crybaby. Whatever the case may be, the fact of the matter is that Yekaterina is no stranger to sobbing and does so on a more than regular basis. She just gets herself worked up over the tiniest of things—a mistake here, a social misstep there—and stresses herself out to the point where her anxieties can run high and her stress even higher than that.
Yet, in spite of it all, Yekaterina will never confess what is bothering her, whether it be simple worries or too much responsibility, to those around her. In her mind they are her burdens to bear, and she would neither wish them or inflict them on anyone else. Of course, as a result, there are times when Yekaterina just doesn’t know how to rely on others emotionally even when she should, which can be hurtful to those wanting to help her and stressful to the point of being unhealthy for her. Roleplay Sample: A doctor shouldn’t have favorites. She should remain impartial to her patients, a neutral party who served as the mirror to reflect their own problems so that they may self-evaluate and find the path recovery. If she came to care for her patients, she should never show it. It was not her duty to dote on those under her care, merely to heal them and move onto the next person who needed her.
Perhaps, Yekaterina mused as she tucked the thick file for her next patient away into her file cabinet, it was for that reason she would never be that great of a doctor. She couldn’t be like Ludwig, no matter how hard she tried. In a way, she envied him his professionalism because such distance had never been possible for her. From the moment a patient’s file came into her hands, a part of her heart began to ache for the person under her care.
She would never tell him, of course, if only because she feared him sending her away and not letting her do her work. A doctor, if she was a good doctor, did not become emotionally attached to her patients. Yet Yekaterina had always been a big sister, that motherly figure, first and foremost. She couldn’t change those aspects of herself, merely use them to her advantage and find a way to get to her patients.
It was for that reason that she closed her office door that day, seventeen minutes before her scheduled session, and locked it tight. She had never really liked that office; in some ways, it felt as constraining to her as the rooms must feel for her patients, closed in and stifling. Oh, she had tried to make it better with her own personal touches, but the energy of the room had never felt in tune with her own.
Nor, she realized, did it feel much in tune with some of her patients.
So she wanted to try a new tactic today, a tactic she had never before dared to suggest. Now, instead of suggesting, she was doing without permission. What would her colleague say to her, if anything? A part of Yekaterina worried she was breaching some sort of protocol, and yet another part of her remained resolute. She was a doctor, and it was time for her to start acting like one.
Feeling as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders with the decision, Yekaterina smiled a brilliant smile and walked up to the first nurse she saw. She placed a hand on her shoulder, her touch light.
“Will you please,” she asked, and even to her own ears her voice sounded so much happier, “send Lovino Vargas to the courtyard when you have a free moment?”
The nurse, a sweet-faced girl Yekaterina had never met before, looked somewhat taken aback by the request but nodded and went about her way. Yekaterina watched her go with a smile, feeling that resolution inside of her strengthen. Something occurred to her, almost as an afterthought, and she whirled around to go catch the nurse before she lost sight of her.
“E-excuse me! I had almost forgotten… Please make sure he brings his dolls, if you can?”
Blinking, the nurse stared at her for a moment. Yekaterina’s hand went up to the top buttons of her shirt and flattened against her chest, a discreet way to make sure she hadn’t popped a button again. Nothing seemed to be missing and, feeling a little self-conscious, she dropped her hand. The nurse smiled somewhat, the gesture shy and just as self-conscious as Yekaterina felt.
“All right,” she murmured. The softness of her voice made Yekaterina’s face soften, and she watched with a bit of fondness as the nurse walked away.
Yekaterina turned and started back toward the courtyard. She had planned for this session ahead of time, making sure to tell the nurses and security who oversaw the area that she would need it for a session today. If they had felt surprised, none of them showed it. Again Yekaterina had been left wondering if this was more standard of a procedure than she thought or something only she dared to do.
It didn’t matter. Whether it had been done before or not, it was being done now. It was time for her to start acting like the doctor she was and stop being that timid, shy girl from back home who feared upsetting people.
With a light, cheery smile Yekaterina let herself into the courtyard and found a good place to sit. It was beneath a tree, the shade stretching over the path and covering a small bench across from her. Instead of sitting on that bench, however, she sat beneath the tree on the ground, folding her legs in a way to maintain her modesty and leaning back against the tree. Once she had settled, she waited for her patient, a patient she had been seeing for two years…
Lovino Vargas.
Oh, how she hoped today might be the day they made a little bit more progress with him. Anything Else?: Lime green is a rather nice color, wouldn't you agree? MSN Account: SestraUkrayina@hotmail.com |
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