Jo over at Dreamwidth put together a list of daily questions for 2023 again 😀 Here’s my answers to first batch of May questions.
1 – School Bus Drivers’ Day: When you were young, did you have to take a school bus to get to school?
I went to school by bus on grades 7-9, but it was regular bus. School bus doesn’t exist here as a major phenomenon. Students who live far enough away from the school get free bus tickets and use regular busses, and the counties/cities arrange mini busses or a taxi if bus routes don’t go by where they live and certain conditions are met… these are a minority; the vast majority use regular busses.
2 – Bike Month: Do you cycle? If yes, do you do it mostly for fun/occasional outings, or is it your main mode of transportation? Does your municipality have good cycling infrastructure? Do you cycle year-round, even in winter (and in the snow if you get snow where you live)?
I don’t bike, I don’t own one anymore. I used to bike until I was about 20. Biking is encouraged here, and it’s a common form of transportation both for work and leisure. A lot of people cycle year around now that the winters aren’t proper winters anymore, but I’m not sure whether they have to change the tires to winter ones like for have to cars do. I sort of regret stopping cycling, if I wanted to re-start now I’d have to buy a bike which are terribly expensive like everything here. It’s too much money to put into something that I don’t whether I would keep doing after the newness wore off.
3 – Write a Review Day: Do you write reviews for products or services (e.g. reviews on Amazon, or on a restaurant’s or shop’s website)? Do you do this regularly, or only if you’re particularly happy or dissatisfied with the product or service? Whether or not you write reviews, do you read reviews left by others to help your decision-making process? Do you find negative reviews more helpful than positive ones?
I write them on places such as Etsy when I buy handmade stuff or on Aliexpress. I don’t write product reviews on Amazon (I do rate and review sellers though). I do read them when making buying decisions.
4 – Petite and Proud Day: Petite is used to describe a person about or under 162 cm / 5’4″. Are you petite? Do you think petite women maybe have an easier time of it than short men? Would you (or have you) dated someone shorter than you?
I’m a short woman (161cm) but I don’t think of myself as petite because to me that particular word means not only short but also slender and delicate, and I’m fat. Also, my bone structure isn’t delicate so I wouldn’t be delicate even if I were thin.
I don’t know, according to many men short women have it easier than short men but I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think there’s many men shorter than me, and I don’t date anyway, so it’s a moot point. I haven’t thought about it.
5 – Space Day: Ever wondered what lies beyond our skies? Do you think we’ll ever have permanent human settlements on the moon, or on Mars?
It used to be my favorite way to daydream! It’s the reason I love scifi so much – to imagine life and living beyond us and beyond Earth.
I like to think we will, I certainly hope so. But I hope it’s only after we’ve solved the problems on Earth so that we don’t take our crap and just transfer it all to Mars.
6 – International No Diet Day: We usually associate a diet with an attempt to lose weight, but many have to follow special diets for other health reasons. Do you, or have you ever, followed a specific diet? Has it, or did it achieve what it was meant to do?
I haven’t followed a diet in the sense of following an actual diet such as Atkins or whatever. I try to follow a diet in the sense that 5-6 years ago I started to add better foodstuffs to my diet such as vegetables, whole grains, better fats and eat less of candy etc. I continue to trying to do that and make it a habit… which is very hard after 40 years of eating only vegetables when I was visiting my Mom but never on my own. I can’t think of it as a diet because to me diets end, and this is supposed to be a permanent change.
My goal isn’t to lose weight, but rather not gain more and just eat more healthier foodstuffs and maybe that also would help with my Crohn’s symptoms and energy levels. I did lose some weight the first few years, but that’s about it. I don’t feel better or more energetic nor did my Crohn’s symptoms improve with the dietary changes.
Occasionally I eat a very narrow, plain diet (things like unseasoned plain rice, bananas, milk, white bread) if my Crohn’s symptoms are really bad but this usually only lasts for a few weeks at a time, and the last time was years ago.
7 – World Laughter Day: is there anything, or anyone, that is almost guaranteed to make you laugh? How would you describe your sense of humour?
I think I have British sense of humour? What is that? Satire?
British comedy shows such as The Fawlty Towers, or Allo’ Allo’, or Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister always make laugh no matter how angry or bad I feel. I click with British humour a lot.
Another type I like a lot is older US sitcoms – I Love Lucy, Sledge Hammer!, Get Smart! and The Golden Girls… that sort of thing.
In my personal life, I also like some dark humor – as an example, I developed a kind of phobia and trauma about mice when I had them indoors for a few years after moving here. Eventually the problem was solved by Mom’s SO doing building stuff where the mise came in after the maintenance guys kept only bringing poison and that not helping. I don’t tolerate mise jokes from anyone but my Mom and best friend because they’re the only ones who understand what I went through while I was developing that phobia and trauma. But I giggle like crazy if either of them buys me a birthday card with a mouse on it saying something clever. Same with a joke about my migraine or Crohn’s because they’ve been through them all with me, so if I joke about some symptom or aspect to them, they get it while other people would think me crazy or weird. Or if they e-mail me a meme after I’ve had a bad bout that says something clever about, say, diarrhea, I find it so funny (because the meme is funny as hell to me) and touching (because they get me).
Or when my Mom’s hip displaced a second time and the doctor told her that if it happens again, she should ask for the upcoming operation quickened because they many times are done faster if the displacement happens many times and the patient is already in the operation queue. So when she told me what the doctor said, we giggled that now we don’t know whether to hope for it to dislace again in hopes of getting the surgery several months faster (the surgery is tentatively planned for fall so around September 2023), or whether to hope it doesn’t happen because the displacement is very painful and obviously she doesn’t want to go through it again. (Update: she had the surgery a in early April – I think they brought it forward but even so, her hip displaced for the third time just 1,5 weeks before the surgery).
I loathe the Uuno Turhapuro movies (the most popular Finnish comedy movies) – there’s nothing funny about them, they’re just incomprehensibly and shamefully bad! Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one seeing this and everyone else thinks they’re hilarious or just neutral. In fact I don’t care most of the Finnish comedy – either it’s not funny, or the sketch/scene goes on for much too long. I do like the song Muistan sua, Elaine which Pirkka-Pekka Petelius sings in Velipuolikuu as the end theme – his antics during the song are always funny 😀 The other Finnish comedy I find funny is Ismo Leikola’s No niin – the most useful word/expression in the Finnish language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EWMlCusxjQ
8 – Etiquette Week: the first Monday of the second full week in May marks the beginning of national etiquette week. Are there any social conventions you wish would go away, or that you wish would come back (or be observed by more people)?
I wish people waiting to get on the bus/train/whatever etc. wouldn’t come to stand like 10 centimers from the edge of the step when the thing first stops – people have to get off first! In the same vein, when you get off the buss/escalator/whatever don’t stop right there – there are more people right behind you who also need to get off the thing!
9 – Sleepover Day: Did you do sleepovers when you were young?
Yeah, with my two best friends but one at a time if I remember correctly. Didn’t have room for more.
10 – Stay Up All Night Night: When was the last time you stayed up all (or most of) the night on purpose (e.g. not because you were tending to an ill child or suffering from insomnia)?
Does reading count? It’s happens on half purpose sometimes? I do that quite often – don’t remember for sure but probably within last two weeks.
11 – World Ego Awareness Day: Do you know anyone with an incredibly inflated ego? When was the last time someone’s ego came into conflict with your own?
Not personally, not anymore. When I was a kid, one of the neighbor kids was terribly selfish and snob and had a huge ego and insisted she was right about everything. Nobody wanted to play with her because of that, and because of that she’d threaten all the kids that she’d make her big brother beat us up unless we played with her. Thinking back, her big brother never paid us any attention but he was a tough guy teenager and had a reputation as a fighter, so we feared him anyway. When we played with her, we always had to do what she wanted to do. My friends and I became very good at avoiding and escaping her. And I and my friends always agreed to meet somewhere other than my apartment building’s grounds and I’d swiftly slip away and not linger anywhere within sight of the yard – all because of that one girl. If she did manage to catch (capture) us, we became very good at lying and we were always in hurry to go somewhere where she wasn’t allowed such as return library books or my friend needed to go eat lunch at home or something.
Sometimes as an adult I’ve thought that she must have had a sad childhood because everybody hated her and avoided her. Wonder what she became as an adult.
12 – Limerick Day: Do you like limericks? Do you have a favourite?
I do! Maybe? This is my favorite and I’ve always thought it’s a limerick:
One fine day in the middle of the night
two dead men got up to a fight
back to back they faced each other
drew their swords and shot each other
The deaf policeman heard the noise
came and shot the two dead men
if you don’t believe this lie is true
ask the blind man, he saw it too
13 – World Fair Trade Day: Do you try to buy certified fair trade products?
Yes, but depends on how expensive it is and whether I can afford it at a given time. I buy most fruits as certified fair trade.
14 – World Migratory Bird Day: World Migratory Bird Day is observed twice a year during the second Saturday in May and again on the second Saturday in October. The goal is to raise awareness of issues affecting migratory birds and to inspire action around the world to take measures for their conservation. Do you live in a region that sees bird migrations in the spring and fall? Light pollution is a major threat to migratory birds. Does your municipality have any “Dim the Lights” policies in place to protect migratory birds?
Yep, we have migrations in the spring and the fall.
I don’t know! I don’t think we have such policies? We might, but I admit that I don’t pay a lot of attention to my home town politics – mostly only to the policies affecting the healthcare and poor and/or the unemployed and I likely wouldn’t have noticed a policy such as this. I’ve heard about the light pollution being bad for birds but I don’t know how bad it’s here in Finland.
15 – Bring Flowers to Someone Day: When was the last time someone gave you flowers? When was the last time you brought flowers to someone else?
My birthday in November.
My Mom’s birthday in December.
16 – Biographers’ Day: Do you like reading biographies? What have been some of your favourites? If you’re not a fan, why not? If you were going to write a biography of someone, who would that be?
I don’t read them as a general rule. I’m just not interested, same as celebrity gossip doesn’t interest me. I’ve read some but only two I actually remember some – first was for Marilyn Monroe, and the other was of the wife of some Finnish diplomat who lived in around 1900-1970s as I recall but I cannot recall her name. She lived abroad a lot for her husband’s work and through a lot tense historical events and met and developed friendships with many notable historical figures. I’d also leaf through a lot of them back when I was working in various libraries because people borrowed them a lot, and I had time to kill kill while sitting at Returns and some had just been returned. I’d read the interesting bits and pieces (say like living in Egypt in 1920s), but couldn’t be bothered with the whole thing.
On the other hand, I do read a lot on Wikipedia about historical figures and history while I’m watching tv shows and movies they are featured in. Such as Elizabeth I, the Tudors, Alfred the Great…