by By spiffikins at https://spiffikins.dreamwidth.org/1251745.html … Hah! Not late this time!
1. What Words or Phrases Do You Think Are Overused?
“hyvä hallitusohjelma” and “kansan mandaatti” and “meidän on pakko”. The current far right government ministers repeats one of those everytime any of them opens their mouth, and they’re all lies.
2. What Family Traditions Do You Want to Carry On When You Get Older?
I’m not sure that any.
3. Have Your Ever Taken Part in a Protest?
Yes.
4. Are You a Nerd or a Geek?
I’m a nerd. With a good measure of geek thrown in!
5. Did You Want to Go to College? Where Did You Want To Go? Did You Get To Go There?
I wanted to go to library school, and did. But I don’t know if it’s equivalent of the US college. The library school was people who’d finished the mandatory basic schooling (ages 7 – 15) and didn’t require high school. It was a 3-year degree back then, the first year which was common for all students and then 1 or 2 years for specialization depending on your program. My Library program was 2 years, but there were also other programs in the same school such as Marketing, or Office or Communications. This was in 1993-1995 and it’s changed since then, I think.
The usual basic path here used to be just mandatory basic schooling -> high school -> university or mandatory basic schooling -> vocational school.
But now there is also higher vocational school and I’ve heard that high school and vocational school can also be done together simultaneously, I think?
6. What Are the Sounds That Make Up the Background Noise in Your Life?
My favorite music, and silence. Road traffic during summer when the windows are open.
7. Why Do We Like Reality Shows So Much?
It’s a puzzle to me! I hate them myself. Waste of space, time and effort.
8. What New Technologies or Tech Toys Are You Most Excited About?
I’m very excited about getting a new laptop this year! But nothing particular, except maybe for ability to play 2160p HDR videos if indeed the new laptops in my price range are capable of that. I think they should be but I’m not sure.
9. Are You Afraid of Math?
Nope, just humiliated. I can’t get my head around it beyond the basic plus, minus, divide and add calculations.
10. Do You Find It Easier to Make New Friends Online or In Person?
Neither. It’s always hard.
11. Do You Have Good Manners?
Pretty good!
12. What Is Your Favorite Place?
My Mom’s home.
13. How Careful Are You Online?
I’m careful. I don’t give out my wallet name and other info unless the other person needs to send me something via snail mail, or to Paypal to me or me to someone else. And I ask them to keep my details to themselves. I lock down my socials. I check I’m using secure connections, remember and/or bookmark the URLs to my bank etc. instead of using search engines, spam all the e-mails from a Nigerian prince or an American military officer who wants my help to transfer his money out of Middle East for some totally legit and legal reasons for I should help him. Etcetera etcetera.
14. Have You Ever Reinvented Yourself?
Not really. I used always have long hair, at least down to my shoulders or preferably closer to my waist. I never even considered short hair. But in my early 40s I suddently started to want very short hair – so called “boy hair”. Took me a couple of years of cutting my hair shorter and shorter until one time I finally had the courage to cut a really short – think Morena Baccarin circa 2009 when she was on tv series V. She was one of the examples of a type of hair cut I brought to the stylist to show what I wanted. I’ve grown waist lentgh hair once since then, and shoulder length a couple of times, but that kind of short hair has been favorite for many years now. The only downside of short hair is you have to go trim it every 4-6 weeks and that gets expensive fast.
15. Which Is More Important: Talent or Hard Work?
Both are important, I think – but I think hard work matters more.
16. What Do You Want More From a Career: Happiness or Wealth?
I don’t/can’t have a career anymore, but before I got ill: Happiness, with enough income not to be poor and being able to cover all my expenses and live a decent life. Work was always work for me, not a career – I didn’t chase money or clout. I just wanted to do my job and then go home to do other stuff.
17. Have You Ever Had to Make a Sacrifice to Help Someone You Care About?
Does myself count? If so, yes. If not, no.
18. How Well Do You Perform Under Pressure?
Very well. I’ve always done well under some kind of deadline. The pressure shouldn’t go on for years like it is has though.
19. What Do You Want Your Obituary to Say?
Nothing. I don’t want an obituary. I just want to disappear when I die.
20. How Often Did/Do You Fight With Your Parents?
Now that I’ve been an adult for decades and will turn 50 later this year: never.
When I was a teenager – weekly. Small things such as having to go on a bike ride or having to do the dishes or my parents talking loudly about other things while we were watching the new episode of my favorite tv series. Never anything serious. I always got mad quickly (in seconds) and mellowed out in minutes so my rages never lasted more than 5-10 minutes.
21. What Qualities Would You Look For in a Housemate?
I wouldn’t. I don’t want a housemate, and they aren’t a thing here except while you’re studying and less even then in the recent decade.
22. Have You Ever ‘Paid It Forward’?
Yes.
23. What Have Been Your Experiences With Catcalling or Other Kinds of Street Harassment?
When I was about 11-25 I got catcalled (because I got huge boobs that early) but then I got really fat and the catcalling stopped. I don’t miss it. Never got harassed in other ways.
24. How Do You Feel About Proms?
I don’t. Proms aren’t a thing here, but “aikuisten tanssit” is and I guess that party and dressing up is kind of like a prom. I still don’t feel any kind of way about it, and “aikuisten tanssit” is only for people who go to “lukio” (high school) and I quit that after 3 months and went to a vocational school instead, so it was never part of my life.
25. What Do You Want to Be Doing When You’re 80?
As long as I’m not pooping uncontrollably and am not in constant head pain due not remembering to take my medications due to dementia or something, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing. Reading, playing on the computer, watching tv and so on and so forth.
26. How Often Do You Cry?
Rarely. I try not to cry because it always starts a migraine attack. The last time I cried was probably 3-4 years ago if not longer.
27. How Do You Express Yourself Creatively?
Baking, Photoshop, binding little notebooks, watercolors, acrylic pouring. Oh, and it’s all playing rather than Serious Art.
28. Is It O.K. to Use Family Connections to Get a Job?
Sure! But understand that your co-worker may doubt you got your job only because you’re family, not because you know what you do. And they might think you are treated better than the rest of them, regardless of whether that is true or not.
29. Is It Easy For You to Say ‘I’m Sorry?’
Depends. If it’s condolences, sure. If I have apologize for something I did, nope.
30. What Would Your Dream Home Be Like?
Separate full size large kitchen (instead of joined kitchen/living room) with planned places for microwave and stand mixer which I would get along with many other appliances I’d love to have and a lot of working space. Craft/hobby room, an office for my computers and papers, a large bedroom for me and a guest bed room. Actual air conditioning (Finnish homes don’t air conditioning – hasn’t been needed until in recent years). I love huge floor-to-ceiling windows but in reality they’d be always covered to keep the sun out so maybe just normal windows. Sort of rustic, maybe French rustic decor. I’m good with an apartment! A house with its own garden is the stereotypical Finnish dream, but I’ve never wanted that. I’m not into garden work and such so while I like gardens, I’d need a gardener too and somebody who’d do all the maintenance and repairs on the house and such. It wouldn’t be in the city, but in the suburb because I like some greenery around me. My current area is nice. A good public transport is a must.
31. How Do You Get Your News?
https://www.yle.fi is my main source (YLE is the public broadcasting company of Finland), and from the online sites of a few newspapers such as https://www.ts.fi, https://www.kansanuutiset.fi and https://www.hs.fi
I also read through official documents such as the Programme of the current government from the government site https://valtioneuvosto.fi/ along with actual scientific reports, studies etc. when they garner a lot discussion or are about big and/or interesting things, particularly when they might affect me/are about my demography because news don’t always present them quite truthfully – news reports may latch on to some particular thing and make a big fuss about it when in reality it’s only a small, sometimes inconsequential finding in the study.
